Venus and Mars aspects across fifteen pairs: a small data study

Venus and Mars aspects are the first thing many people look for between two charts, because Venus is read as affection and Mars as desire. How common are they? We counted every one across all fifteen pairs in our example circle, six made-up people, and measured how tight each is. The answer is more modest than the folklore, and it says a lot about how much one contact can carry. The data is small, so treat it as an illustration.

What we counted

The circle is Robin, Sam, Maya, Jo, Ade and Lena, all fictional examples with real, engine-computed charts. Six people make fifteen pairs. For each pair we ran the same synastry the compatibility calculator uses, then filtered.

First, the strict version: Venus to Mars, in both directions, so one person’s Venus to the other’s Mars and the other way round. The engine counts a conjunction, square, trine or opposition within 5° and a sextile within 3°. Second, a wider version: any contact where Venus or Mars meets the other person’s Sun, Moon, Rising, Venus or Mars. For how orbs work in general, see our step-by-step synastry guide.

How common is a Venus–Mars aspect?

6 of 15 pairs have one in at least one direction. None has one in both directions. Robin and Ade appear in the most such pairs, 3 each. 4 of the 6 contacts are squares.

Is 6 a lot? Take the orbs above and scatter two planets at random. The windows add up to 12.8% of the circle in each direction, so about 24% of pairs should have at least one. Across 15 pairs, that is roughly 3.6 pairs. We got 6. Chance alone would give that many or more about 13 times in 100, and these pairs share people, so even that figure is generous. In other words, it is nothing unusual.

A wider look: Venus and Mars to Sun, Moon and Rising

Widening the filter finds 62 contacts across the fifteen pairs. Here is the count for each pair, with its tightest.

Sam & Maya have the most, 7, and Sam & Lena the fewest, 1. Notice that Sam & Maya have no Venus–Mars aspect at all. The strict count missed the pair with the most Venus and Mars activity, which is a good reason not to hunt for one contact. Of the 62 contacts, 15 sit under 1°.

Which pair has the tightest contact?

On the strict count, Ade and Lena: Ade’s Venus square Lena’s Mars, 0.36° from exact, a square. On the wider count, the closest is Robin’s Rising square Lena’s Mars at 0.09°, in the Robin & Lena pairing.

Read the strict one as a sentence. Ade’s Venus, how Ade shows warmth and what Ade finds lovely, presses at a square on Lena’s Mars, her drive and her temper. A square is lively and sometimes prickly. The same pair also has Ade’s Mars sextile Lena’s Rising and Ade’s Rising square Lena’s Venus, both just over 1° from exact, so the picture is a cluster, not a lone contact.

Both are tight by any measure, and neither pair is a couple in the example. Ade is a friend of the group and Lena is Robin’s mum. A tight Venus–Mars contact between friends or relatives is read more as liveliness, competitiveness or ease of company than romance. The contact is real. What it means depends on the relationship it sits in.

Does a Venus–Mars aspect raise the Spark score?

In Charthood’s tally, Spark counts Venus–Mars, Mars–Mars, Sun–Mars, Mars–Pluto, Venus–Pluto and Venus–Uranus contacts, all as lifts. So we can test whether having a Venus–Mars aspect goes with a higher score.

The pairs without one average slightly higher. That sounds backwards until you remember that Spark has other ingredients, such as Sun–Mars and Pluto contacts. Ade & Lena has the tightest Venus–Mars contact but a Spark of 63, while Sam and Ade reach 82 with no Venus–Mars aspect at all. One contact is one ingredient.

What this data can and can’t carry

Not much, and it is worth being plain about why. Fifteen pairs is a tiny sample. The six people are examples, not a survey. Several pairs share a person, so they are not independent. And Spark is our own tally, so comparing it with Venus–Mars is partly circular. Nothing here shows that Venus–Mars aspects cause or predict attraction.

What the data does support is narrower. The positions are sound, the orbs are stated, and every contact above can be checked against NASA JPL Horizons. The astronomy is solid. The meaning is up to you.

Common mistakes

• Hunting for one contact. The pair with the most Venus and Mars activity here had no Venus–Mars aspect.
• Ignoring direction. Ade’s Venus to Lena’s Mars is a different contact from Lena’s Venus to Ade’s Mars.
• Treating a square as a warning. It is lively and sometimes awkward. The tally counts it as a lift for Spark.
• Reading a loose contact like a tight one. A 4.9° aspect is background next to a 0.4° one.
• Taking a data study of six people as evidence. It is an illustration of method.

Check your own pair

Put your two birth dates into our free birth chart calculator to get each chart, then run them through the compatibility tool and look for Venus and Mars in the list of contacts. For a full reading of one couple, see Robin and Sam’s worked example. To see how all five scores spread across these same fifteen pairs, read our compatibility reading assessment. And if the five angles are new, our aspects guide explains each one. Positions come from astronomy-engine.