Your rising sign, or ascendant, is the sign that was coming up over the eastern horizon at the moment you were born. It changes about every two hours, which is why an exact birth time matters.
First impressions
The rising sign describes how you meet the world and how the world first meets you: your manner, your pace, the way you walk into a room.
The lens for everything else
It also sets the houses of your chart, so it shapes where every planet lands. Two people with the same Sun sign but different rising signs can live very different stories.