AsterNymAsterNym
Portrait of Thomas A. Steitz

Thomas A. Steitz

Thomas A. Steitz (born August 23, 1940, Milwaukee, United States; died 2018), was an American biochemist. Steitz's honours include Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Keio Medical Science Prize and Rosenstiel Award.

Thomas A. Steitz’s zodiac sign was Leo or Virgo (the Sun changed sign that day, and no documented birth time settles which), Chinese zodiac was Metal Dragon, with Life Path 9 in numerology.

Your match with Thomas

Free, no account, stays on this device. Add a birth time later.

How common is the name Thomas in the U.S.?

#34

US rank in 2025

~2,367,087

Americans share it since 1880

1952

its peak year

Thomas ranked 8th among boys and 750th among girls in 1940, the year of this birth, with 23,991 American boys and 86 girls on the register.

US Social Security Administration public records

What Thomas’s name adds up to

Worked from the name as published, letter by letter.

5

Expression · versatility

4

Soul Urge · solid ground

1

Personality · self-directed

The name opens on T (2) and closes on S (1). The value it repeats most is 1, which numerology reads as drive.

Pythagorean letter values · A=1 to I=9, then J=1 again

Thomas’s lucky numbers, colours and stones

Traditional correspondences, calculated not chosen.

Lucky numbers

9 · 1 · 6 · 7

Lucky colours

White & Gold

Lucky day

—

Direction

← West

Season

autumn

Stones

Peridot, Your planetary stone, Rutilated Quartz

Flower constellation

🌸 Gladiolus · 🤍 White Magnolia

Coral · Moonlight white

Eight Mansions · Kua number

Kua 2, trigram Kun 坤, West group. Best direction Northeast, worst East.

A different tradition from the Direction above, and a different question: feng shui reads it from the solar year 1940, which turns at Li Chun rather than at New Year, and from sex, which Wikidata records as male. Work out your own →

The record

What sets Thomas apart

Thomas A. Steitz took the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry in 1980, at 40.

Training came by way of Lawrence University and Wauwatosa East High School.

Cause of death is recorded as pancreatic cancer; the grave is at Grove Street Cemetery.

Thomas A. Steitz was married Joan A. Steitz.

Wikipedia's editors put Thomas A. Steitz under Deaths from pancreatic cancer in Connecticut, People from Branford, Connecticut and Lawrence University alumni.

Kobe Bryant (1978) and River Phoenix (1970) share the birthday in another year, so the sun sits where it sits here.

Educated at
Lawrence University, Wauwatosa East High School and Harvard University
Awards
Canada Gairdner International Award (2007), Keio Medical Science Prize (2006) and Foreign Member of the Royal Society (2011)
Cause of death
pancreatic cancer
Buried at
Grove Street Cemetery
Citizenship
United States
Languages
English
Wikipedia editions
58

What the chart says

Thomas, according to the stars

How Thomas wants to be loved

Thomas wants to be loved like home. Venus in Cancer needs to feel safe before it feels anything else, and then it feels everything. Remember the small things, meet the family, make the tea. Thomas gives care in a hundred quiet ways and needs to know it is noticed. Consistency is the romance.

How Thomas creates

How Thomas makes things happen: they are the ground everyone else stands on. A Yang Earth day master is the mountain, reliable, slow to move, immovable once it has. Thomas creates by holding: the plan, the people, the standard. They are trusted before they have said a word, and the work is remembering that mountains are allowed to want things too.

Instinct

Instinct: Thomas is larger than life, a Dragon year, and their gut reaction is to go big. Confident, lucky, a natural at the centre of things, and warm-hearted underneath the spectacle. The Metal year sharpens it: principled, determined, clear about what is right.

Purpose

Purpose: Life Path 9 is the humanitarian. Thomas is here for the bigger picture, to give, to finish what others started and hand it on. Wise beyond their years, compassionate, a little world-weary, and learning to receive as freely as they give.

Triggers

Triggers: sloppiness, and being told they are overthinking it. Mars in Virgo means Thomas channels energy into fixing, sorting, getting it right, and gets sharp when others do not care. The critic turns inward first. Give them a problem worth solving and watch them come alive.

Computed from Thomas's birth date. Working below.

✦ A real star from their birth night

Dedicate a star to Thomas A. Steitz

Three stars chosen from the real sky above Milwaukee on the night they were born. Choose the story that connects you.

A 9 p.m. reference sky, not the birth minute. Dedications are commemorative and confer no ownership of stars.

The sky over Milwaukee that night

Computed for 43.05°N, 9 p.m. local sky.

Overhead at Milwaukee at 9 p.m. that evening: Vega of Lyra, within 5.5° of the exact zenith.

Of the 83 catalog stars above the horizon, Arcturus was the brightest.

From 43.0°N not one of the brightest stars stays permanently above the horizon — all of them rise and set.

The trade is at the other end of the sky: nothing south of −47.0° declination ever rises from here, which puts Canopus, Rigil Kentaurus, Achernar, Hadar, Acrux, Mimosa and Toliman permanently out of view.

The Moon, 70% lit at waning gibbous, had already set; the Sun sat 13° below the horizon.

The name and the places

Born in
Milwaukee, United States

The death is recorded at Branford, South Central Connecticut Planning Region in 2018.

No birth time is on record, so no astrocartography map can be drawn for Thomas A. Steitz: the lines move about fifteen degrees of longitude an hour. Shared Places can still draw yours.

How unusual Thomas's chart is

Chart pattern score

62 / 100 · Unusual

3-planet stellium in Virgo · A bowl chart · No Air planets

An AsterNym index built from stelliums, yods, grand crosses and chart shape. It is not a population percentile, and a high score is not a better chart. Without a birth time the houses are left out of it.

Score your own chart →

The quick version

Leo or Virgo Sun

Thomas A. Steitz was born on a day when the Sun moved from Leo into Virgo. Without a documented birth time, the exact Sun sign cannot be determined reliably, so AsterNym shows both rather than choosing one.

Metal Dragon

Ambition with charisma attached.

Thomas A. Steitz was born on August 23, 1940, which falls in a Metal Dragon year of the Chinese calendar.

What the Dragon means →

Life Path 9

Compassion at scale.

Thomas A. Steitz's birth date, August 23, 1940, reduces to Life Path 9 under the numerology method AsterNym uses.

What Life Path 9 means →

What stands out in Thomas’s chart

Thomas’s birth chart

Reference chart · birth time unknown

Positions are checked across the whole date. The Moon ranges from 27° to 9° Aries or Taurus depending on the hour.

AriesTaurusGeminiCancerLeoVirgoLibraScorpioSagittariusCapricornAquariusPisces123456789101112Moon grinds against Pluto · Square, 0° orbVenus opens doors for Jupiter · Sextile, 0.2° orbVenus opens doors for Saturn · Sextile, 0.4° orbMoon flows with Mars · Trine, 0.7° orbJupiter fuses with Saturn · Conjunction, 0.7° orbUranus flows with Neptune · Trine, 1.8° orbSun fuses with Mars · Conjunction, 2.2° orbSun flows with Moon · Trine, 2.9° orbSun in Virgo · 0°23′☉0°Moon in Taurus · 3°19′☽3°Mercury in Leo · 18°45′☿18°Venus in Cancer · 15°13′♀15°Mars in Virgo · 2°34′♂2°Jupiter in Taurus · 15°27′♃15°Saturn in Taurus · 14°46′♄14°Uranus in Taurus · 26°07′♅26°Neptune in Virgo · 24°19′♆24°Pluto in Leo · 3°17′♇3°

No birth time, so the houses are a solar chart: the Sun’s sign counts as house 1.

Tap a planet, a sign, a house, an aspect line or an element to see what it means and what sits in it.
Lines drawn
Conjunction 0°
Sextile 60°
Square 90°
Trine 120°
Opposition 180°

Placements

Tap one to light it on the wheel.

The working: aspects, Chiron and the asteroids, dominant planets and configurationsshow

Aspects across every possible birth time

  • stableMoontrineMars0.0° to 6.4° orb

    Thomas’s feelings flow straight into their drive. Effortless, which is exactly why it gets taken for granted.

  • stableMoonsquarePluto0.0° to 6.0° orb

    Thomas’s feelings grind against their depths. The friction is lifelong. Worked with, it builds real strength.

  • stableVenussextileJupiter0.0° to 0.6° orb

    Thomas’s affections open doors for their growth.

  • stableVenussextileSaturn0.0° to 0.9° orb

  • stableJupiterconjunctionSaturn0.7° orb

  • stableUranustrineNeptune1.8° orb

  • stableSunconjunctionMars2.0° to 2.4° orb

  • stableMercurysquareJupiter2.4° to 4.2° orb

  • stableMercurysquareSaturn3.0° to 4.9° orb

  • stableSunsquareUranus3.8° to 4.7° orb

  • stableMarssquareUranus6.1° to 6.8° orb

  • possibleSuntrineMoonorb from 0.0° to 8.4° depending on birth time

Chart signature

Elements

  • Fire2 of 10
  • Earth7 of 10
  • Air0 of 10
  • Water1 of 10

Modalities

  • Cardinal1 of 10
  • Fixed6 of 10
  • Mutable3 of 10

Counted across the ten planets by sign: Earth leads this chart, with no planets in Air signs.

Thomas’s Chiron, Ceres, Eros, Hygiea and Lilith

What astrologers make of these five, at noon values.

  • ⚷ ChironCancer 26°50′ (moves 0.10° over the day)

    centaur (2060) · the wound and what is learnt from it

  • ⚳ CeresLibra 11°20′ (moves 0.41° over the day)

    dwarf planet (1) · how a person nurtures and wants to be nurtured

  • ♡ ErosSagittarius 18°18′ (moves 0.23° over the day)

    near-Earth asteroid (433) · what draws them and how they desire

  • ⚕ Hygiea ℞Aries 3°30′ (moves 0.13° over the day)

    main-belt asteroid (10) · health, routine and what keeps them well

  • ⚸ Black Moon LilithAries 8°09′ (moves 0.11° over the day)

    mean lunar apogee · the part that refuses to be tamed

Aspects to the asteroids and Lilith

  • Hygiea trine Pluto 0.2°
  • Eros trine Mercury 0.4°
  • Chiron sextile Uranus 0.7°
  • Chiron sextile Neptune 2.5°

Thomas’s dominant planets

  1. 1. ☿ Mercury8 pts

    rules the Sun sign, Virgo; disposes Sun, Mars, Neptune; 2 major aspects

  2. 2. ♀ Venus5 pts

    disposes Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus; 2 major aspects

  3. 3. ☉ Sun4 pts

    disposes Mercury, Pluto; 2 major aspects

Configurations in Thomas’s chart

  • stellium, the shape it makesStellium in Virgo · Sun, Mars, NeptuneThree or more planets in one sign (four, or three with a luminary, by AsterNym's count): a concentration astrologers read as that sign's themes dominating the chart.

Minor aspects

semi-sextile, semi-square, quintile, sesquiquadrate, biquintile, quincunx.

  • Sun semi-square Venus 0.2°
  • Mars semi-sextile Pluto 0.7°

More people like Thomas

Other chemists

Born in United States

More charts like Thomas’s

Born in Dragon years

Year of the Dragon →

Also born on August 23

Fellow Yang Earth day masters

What a Day Master is →

Famous people with Life Path 9

Life Path numbers explained →

From the journal: What if you don't know your birth time? · Fixed, cardinal, mutable: the modality cheat sheet

Thomas’s cards

Computed from August 23, 1940. Tap to flip.

Birth tarot card

The Moon

Chinese zodiac

Dragon 辰

Life Path

9 · Healer
The working: BaZi pillarsshow

BaZi pillars

Day Master: yang Earth.

Year

庚

yang Metal

辰

Dragon

Earth

roots & early life

Month

甲

yang Wood

申

Monkey

Metal

work & drive

Day

day master

戊

yang Earth

戌

Dog

Earth

you & partnership

Where this comes from, and how it is worked out

Thomas’s birth date and birthplace come from Wikidata Q109559 (CC0), as do the occupations, works and awards above. With no documented birth time this chart is rated X on the Rodden scale, the astrological convention for how well evidenced a birth time is. The banner above lists what that leaves out. Entries are matched to Wikidata by entity id rather than by name, kept at day precision, and dropped where sources disagree on the date.

Tropical zodiac, whole-sign houses, modern rulers. Aspects on the western_v1 orb policy; minor ones at 1.5° to 2.5°, skipped where a major already holds. Minor bodies from JPL Horizons heliocentric vectors, Lilith as mean apogee. Dominance is an AsterNym score — rulerships, dispositors, aspect count — so other methods can name a different leader.

Portrait by Prolineserver (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The same Thomas A. Steitz at Wikipedia.

Roster last reviewed September 10, 2026. The full method: how it works.

Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions, and not endorsed by Thomas A. Steitz.

Quick answers about Thomas A. Steitz’s chart

What zodiac sign was Thomas A. Steitz?
Thomas A. Steitz was born on a day when the Sun moved from Leo into Virgo. Without a documented birth time, the exact Sun sign cannot be determined reliably, so AsterNym shows both rather than choosing one.
What was Thomas A. Steitz's Chinese zodiac animal?
The Dragon, with the Metal element, from the Chinese lunar year of the August 23, 1940 birth.
What was Thomas A. Steitz's Life Path number?
Life Path 9, calculated in numerology.
What was Thomas A. Steitz's Chiron sign?
Chiron in Cancer at 26°. Position from JPL Horizons.
Where was Thomas A. Steitz's Black Moon Lilith?
Mean Black Moon Lilith in Aries at 8°. This is the mean lunar apogee; the osculating Lilith some tables use can sit up to 30° away.
What was Thomas A. Steitz's dominant planet?
Mercury, on AsterNym's dominance score (8 points: rules the Sun sign, Virgo; disposes Sun, Mars, Neptune; 2 major aspects). Venus is second and Sun third. Other sites weight rulerships and aspects differently and can name a different leader.

More charts to explore