What «planets today» actually shows
A planets-today page is a photograph of the real sky at this moment, listing where each of the ten bodies astrology uses sits along the zodiac: the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. It is the live counterpart to your natal chart. Your birth chart is frozen at the minute you were born and never changes; the planets today keep moving, hour by hour. On AstraBrain the table shows each body, the sign it currently occupies, and its exact degree inside that sign, stamped with the moment in UTC so you know how fresh the reading is. The same positions feed the Oracle, which crosses this live sky with your natal chart. Read on its own, the table answers one plain question: where is everything right now? Because the fast bodies keep moving, two visits a few hours apart will already show the Moon on a different degree, which is why the page carries a timestamp rather than a fixed date. You can see today's planetary positions on the planets today page, refreshed as the sky moves.
Reading the sign and the degree
Each row gives two numbers that matter: the sign and the degree. The sign (say, Mars in Gemini) places a planet in one of the twelve 30-degree slices of the zodiac. The degree tells you how far into that sign it has travelled, from 0 to 30. Mars at 2 degrees of Gemini has only just arrived; Mars at 28 degrees is about to leave for Cancer. This matters because a planet near 29 degrees, the so-called anaretic degree, is on its way out and will change sign within a day or two for the fast movers. The degree is also what astrologers use to judge aspects: two planets near the same degree in compatible signs are in close contact. On AstraBrain the degree is shown to two decimals, for example 13.45 degrees, because that precision comes straight from the ephemeris and decides which aspects are exact.
What the R means: retrograde
A small R next to a planet means it is retrograde: from Earth it appears to move backward through the zodiac for a stretch of weeks or months. Nothing in space actually reverses. Retrograde is an optical effect of two planets on circular tracks overtaking each other, the same illusion as a slower car seeming to drift backward when your train passes it. Mercury does this three or four times a year for about three weeks each time; Venus roughly every eighteen months; Mars about every two years. The outer planets are retrograde for months on end, so you will often see Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune or Pluto carrying an R. Astrologers read a retrograde planet as turned inward, slowing a theme down for review rather than driving it forward: Mercury retrograde is the famous one, read as a time to recheck plans and conversations rather than launch them. On the table, Mercury, Venus and Mars link through to a fuller explanation when they turn; the rest simply show the mark. A planet is not retrograde all the time, so the R comes and goes: the same Mars that carried an R last month may be moving forward again today.
Fast planets and slow planets
Speed is the single most useful thing to notice. The Moon is the sprinter, covering about 13 degrees a day, roughly half a degree an hour, and crossing the whole zodiac in about 27 days. The Sun, Mercury and Venus average close to one degree a day, so they change sign monthly. Mars covers about half a degree a day. Then the pace collapses: Jupiter moves only about five arcminutes a day (under a tenth of a degree), Saturn about two arcminutes, and Uranus, Neptune and Pluto crawl so slowly they sit in one sign for years. This is why the fast planets colour the mood of a single day while the slow ones mark whole chapters of a life. A concrete example: check the table today and again next week. The Moon will have moved through two or three signs, the Sun about seven degrees, while Pluto will sit on almost exactly the same degree it showed last week. If a position looks the same every time you check for weeks, it is one of the slow movers, and it is doing the heavier work. The practical rule: read the fast planets for the texture of the day and the slow ones for the larger story you are living through.
The Moon of the day
Because the Moon is so fast, it is the part of the table that changes most between visits. It spends only about two and a half days in each sign, setting the emotional texture of a day or two before moving on. AstraBrain also shows the Moon's phase and the percentage of its disc that is lit, worked out from the real angle between the Sun and the Moon rather than a calendar estimate. A reading near 0 percent is a new Moon, near 100 percent a full Moon, with the familiar quarters in between; the whole cycle runs about 29.5 days. The phase and the Moon's sign together are the quickest read on the table: they tell you the feel of the next day or so, which is exactly the window the Moon governs. Everything slower than the Moon changes the backdrop, not the daily weather.
Comparing the sky with your own chart
The table alone is the sky for everyone alive today; it becomes personal only when you lay it over your own chart. That overlay is what astrologers call a transit. If the table says the Sun is at 15 degrees of Leo and your natal Moon sits at 15 degrees of Leo, today's Sun is sitting right on your Moon, a contact you might actually feel. Most of the table will be passing through quiet stretches of your chart on any given day; the one or two bodies touching a natal planet or an angle are the ones worth noting. To do this you need your own chart first, which means your birth date, exact time and place. The honest catch: without a birth time you cannot place your houses or angles, so the table can only be compared to your planets, not your Ascendant or Midheaven.
How AstraBrain computes it, honestly
The positions on the table are exact astronomy. AstraBrain reads them from the Swiss Ephemeris, the same high-precision data professional astronomers and astrologers rely on, so the sign, the degree and the retrograde flag are facts, not guesses, good to a fraction of a degree. What is not a fact is the meaning. When the Oracle crosses this live sky with your natal chart and writes a reading, that interpretation is generated by an AI language model, offered as a mirror for reflection, not a forecast. This is the honest line we hold everywhere on AstraBrain: the mathematics is precise, the interpretation is a story, and astrology is not a science and not prediction. The table tells you truly where the planets are; what that means for your day is a language for thinking, not a verdict about what will happen.
Quick questions
Does a planet's sign today affect me personally? Only if it touches your own chart; otherwise it is the shared sky, the same for everyone. • Why does the Moon change so often? It is the fastest body, moving about 13 degrees a day and changing sign every two and a half days. • Is retrograde bad? No. It marks a planet turning inward for review; it is a tone, not a punishment, and nothing physically reverses. • What is the degree number for? It shows how far a planet has moved into its sign (0 to 30) and decides which aspects are exact. • Can I read the table without my birth time? You can read the sky itself, but to compare it with your Ascendant or houses you need an exact birth time.