What this period actually is
Between December 6, 2024 and February 24, 2025 Mars moves back through 19.2 degrees of the zodiac, from 6°10' Leo to 17°01' Cancer, without changing its own direction at any point. Mars is further out than Earth, so the 79 days between December 6, 2024 and February 24, 2025 are the stretch in which Earth overtakes it on the inside track and the planet appears to fall behind.
The mechanism behind the Mars station of December 6, 2024 is the same one described in what retrograde motion is. Read astrologically, the convention is that Mars — drive, temper, appetite and the willingness to act — turns inward between December 6, 2024 and February 24, 2025, which is a habit of reading rather than a claim about the sky.
The dates in full
Station retrograde: December 6, 2024 at 6°10' Leo, 23:33 UTC. Station direct: February 24, 2025 at 17°01' Cancer, 02:00 UTC. It begins in Leo and backs into Cancer, crossing the boundary between 6°10' Leo and 17°01' Cancer rather than working one stretch of a single sign.
Mars first reaches 17°01' Cancer — the degree it will retrograde back to — on October 5, 2024, and does not clear 6°10' Leo, the degree it stationed at, until May 2, 2025, so counting both shadows the passage runs 209 days rather than 79.
What the period is good for
For the 79 days between December 6, 2024 and February 24, 2025 the workable version of the advice is narrow: finish what is open instead of opening more, and treat low drive as the cycle rather than a personal failure.
If one thing is worth timing around the stretch that ends February 24, 2025, it is starting a fight, starting a business, or starting a training programme that depends on momentum — not because the sky forbids it, but because a marked period is a reasonable prompt to check work you would otherwise wave through. Treating the whole of December 6, 2024 to February 24, 2025 as a general curse is the version worth ignoring.
Which house it falls in for your sign
Counted from each sign as the first house, this Mars retrograde, stationing at 6°10' Leo falls here:
| Sign | House | What that house covers |
|---|---|---|
| Aries | 5th house | play, romance, children and anything you make for its own sake |
| Taurus | 4th house | home, family, roots and private ground |
| Gemini | 3rd house | conversation, short trips, siblings and daily information |
| Cancer | 2nd house | money, possessions and what you consider yours |
| Leo | 1st house | your own bearing, appearance and the first move |
| Virgo | 12th house | rest, solitude, what is behind you and what runs unattended |
| Libra | 11th house | friends, groups, networks and what you are aiming at |
| Scorpio | 10th house | career, public standing and what you are known for |
| Sagittarius | 9th house | distance, study, belief, travel and the long view |
| Capricorn | 8th house | shared money, debt, intimacy and what is not said out loud |
| Aquarius | 7th house | partners, opponents and anyone you deal with one to one |
| Pisces | 6th house | work, routine, health and the small maintenance of a life |
The cycle either side of this one
The next Mars station follows 685 days after February 24, 2025; nothing earlier is dated here.
- Next: January 10, 2027 to April 1, 2027
- All Mars retrograde periods: the full list
Questions people ask about this
When does Mars go retrograde in 2024?
On December 6, 2024 at 23:33 UTC, at 6°10' Leo.
When does it end?
The direct station falls on February 24, 2025 at 17°01' Cancer, 79 days after the turn.
What is the shadow period?
For this passage it runs October 5, 2024 to May 2, 2025: the stretch in which Mars crosses the same degrees it covers three times in all.
Does Mars retrograde break things?
No. Between December 6, 2024 and February 24, 2025 the planet only appears to reverse, and the tradition reads that as a stretch better suited to review than to launch.