Venus with Jupiter, Honour and Friends

The tradition gives Bungula the nature of Venus with Jupiter, the same benefic pairing as its neighbour Agena, and Robson reads it for beneficence, honour, friends and a refined, self-reflective nature. As with Agena the delineation is a product of the modern compiling tradition, since Alpha Centauri lies too far south to have entered the reckoning of the ancient Mediterranean astrologers. The star's true and extraordinary distinction is astronomical rather than astrological: of all the stars in the sky it is the closest to the Sun, the nearest neighbour of our own system and the first target imagined for any future journey beyond it.

The corrupted name Bungula appears to be a garbled Latin rendering, of uncertain derivation, that entered specifically the astrological star lists rather than the astronomical literature, which has always used Rigil Kentaurus or the bare Bayer designation Alpha Centauri; Bungula is accordingly a name one finds in Robson and his sources but essentially nowhere else. The star's true distinction, nearest system to the Sun, was established only once reliable stellar parallax measurement became possible in the nineteenth century, centuries after Bungula had already acquired its name in the older astrological lists.