The colleague who sorted out the spreadsheet nobody understood and, three months later, became the person management calls for everything. The pastry cook who remade the same recipe ten times until she got the texture right, and now takes orders on the recommendation of people who've never met her. The friend who started walking at six in the morning on doctor's orders and, a year later, runs a group of twenty people in the park.

None of them would call that luck. They would call it work, fussiness, stubbornness. And that's how the door opened.

It's the kind of growth the sky favours from the end of July 2027 onward. Jupiter enters Virgo on 26th July 2027, around 1:46am Brasília time, and stays there until 24th August 2028, about a year and a month. Jupiter expands whatever it touches. In Virgo, it touches work done well, routine, health, detail and the wish to be useful.

Jupiter moves slowly, so the dates span more than a year. They're given in Brasília time and come from the same ephemeris the site uses to draw up birth charts.

• 26th July 2027, around 1:46am: Jupiter enters Virgo.
• 12th January 2028: Jupiter turns retrograde, at 27°30' Virgo.
• 13th May 2028: Jupiter moves forward again, at 17°32' Virgo.
• 24th August 2028: Jupiter leaves Virgo.

This time it doesn't return to Leo. The retrograde happens entirely within Virgo, and the months between January and May 2028 tend to be read as time to review and settle what opened up in the second half of 2027. What changes when the planet moves backward is covered in the text about Jupiter retrograde.

And the start comes with company. Five days after the entry, on 2nd August 2027, the total solar eclipse in Leotakes place, the biggest of the year. The end of July and the start of August 2027 are packed weeks in the sky.

Jupiter takes twelve years to go around the zodiac and spends about a year in each sign. While it's in one of them, it moves through the stretch of your chart where that sign falls, and astrology reads this passage as a transit: today's sky touching the chart you were born with. The mechanism, with the duration of each planet, is covered in what an astrological transit is.

It's worth separating two things that share the same name. Someone born with Jupiter in Virgo carries this way of growing their whole life, and that's described in Jupiter in Virgo in the birth chart. This text is about the sky of 2027 and 2028, which passes over everyone at the same time, each person in a different house.

Jupiter is the planet of expansion: it opens doors, brings opportunity, amplifies. It also amplifies whatever was already too much, which is why tradition always spoke of it with one eye on luck and the other on excess. Virgo is earth, the sign of craft, of the body, of method, of service done with care.

Together, the two describe a year in which growth tends to come through what you do best, and better and better. The technical course pays off more than the fancy diploma. The routine you finally get right makes room for everything else. The client arrives because someone saw your work up close and liked what they saw.

Excess also has a familiar face. The to-do list that only grows, because you say yes to everything. The perfectionism that keeps the project in the drawer for one more month, and then one more. The diet, the training and the check-ups taken to a rigour that becomes the problem itself. When Jupiter passes through Virgo, the useful question is what deserves your fussiness, and what can just stay good enough.

Since Jupiter returns to the same sign every twelve years, its last passage through Virgo helps make sense of this one. It happened between August 2015 and September 2016, and back then it moved through the same stretch of your chart it will move through now.

The good question is simple: what began in your life around that time, in that area? The job you started, the course you took, the diet that changed your body, the dog that changed your routine, the side gig that became a profession. Many people look back at 2015 and 2016 and recognise there the seed of something that's still growing.

Work it out slowly, with a calendar to hand. If the memory matches the house where Virgo falls in your chart, you already have a clue to the subject that starts asking for room again from July 2027.

The sign shows the theme in the sky. The house in your birth chart shows which area of your life it happens in. Generate the site's free birth chart with your date, time and city of birth; the exact time makes a difference, because a two-hour error can change the house entirely.

On the wheel, look for the symbol for Virgo (♍) in the outer ring. The number of the house occupying that stretch is the area that grows this year. If Virgo is split between two houses, both come into play, one after the other, as Jupiter moves through the sign. What each house holds is in what an astrological house is.

• House 1: you grow by looking after yourself with method, and the change in habit shows up in your body and in how others see you.
• House 2: money comes through the quality of what you deliver, and charging for what you do well stops feeling awkward.
• House 3: studying, writing and teaching what you know pays off more than expected, and the short course opens a door.
• House 4: the house gets properly sorted out, from the postponed renovation to the family routine that finally finds a way to work.
• House 5: a hobby becomes a craft, pleasure comes from doing things well, and the children ask for your presence day to day.
• House 6: there's no shortage of work and the body responds well to care; the risk is saying yes to everything.
• House 7: the useful partnership shows up, the business partner or companion who genuinely helps in practical terms.
• House 8: it's the year to sort out debt, tax and shared money, and a detailed agreement avoids the row that comes later.
• House 9: specialisation, long-term study or a work trip make you grow by going deeper.
• House 10: your competence gets noticed, and the invitation or promotion comes through a technical recommendation.
• House 11: study groups, associations and colleagues in your line of work expand your network through mutual help.
• House 12: behind-the-scenes work, volunteering and care for your mental health are where you grow, away from the spotlight.

Jupiter opens doors, and walking through them is still your job. The passage through Virgo describes a mood favourable to diligence and usefulness; it doesn't hand you a job, money or a cure on its own. And, being Jupiter, it also carries the risk of overdoing it, which in Virgo tends to show up as an overloaded schedule and too much self-demand.

No one needs to wait for this transit to begin anything, or to cancel what was already decided. The general sky applies to everyone at the same time. What it will mean in your life depends on your whole birth chart and on the choices you make along the way, and the house where Virgo sits is only the address to start looking from.

And the questions that come up most on this subject, with the short answer: