Asteroids & centaurs
The small bodies, and why they aren’t in your chart
Chiron, Ceres and the centaurs turn up constantly in modern astrology. They are real objects with real orbits and genuinely interesting science. AsterNym does not place any of them in your chart — and this page explains both what they are and why we don’t.
Why we don’t calculate them
Every position on this site — every planet, every house cusp, every star that rose over your birthplace — comes from astronomy-engine, which computes the Sun, Moon and eight planets to high precision and has no ephemeris for minor bodies. Putting a Chiron sign on your chart would mean sourcing that data separately and vouching for it. Until we can do that properly, saying nothing is the honest option, and it is the same rule we apply to houses without a birth time.
The nine
Five asteroids from the main belt and four centaurs from beyond it. The science in each entry is checkable; the astrological line reports how practitioners who use these bodies read them, which is not the same as us endorsing it.
Ceres(1)
Dwarf planet · C-type
The object: The largest object in the asteroid belt and the only dwarf planet inside Neptune's orbit. It holds about a third of the belt's total mass and probably has more fresh water than Earth.
In astrology: Astrologers who use it read Ceres as nurture and sustenance — how you feed people and how you want to be fed.
Pallas(2)
Asteroid · B-type
The object: The third-largest asteroid, on an unusually tilted orbit that makes it expensive to reach; no spacecraft has ever visited it.
In astrology: Read as strategy and pattern recognition — intelligence applied to a problem rather than to a book.
Juno(3)
Asteroid · S-type
The object: One of the first asteroids ever found, in 1804, and briefly counted as a planet before the belt was understood.
In astrology: Read as commitment and fairness inside a partnership — what you need in order to stay.
Vesta(4)
Asteroid · V-type
The object: Bright enough to be seen with the naked eye from a dark site. NASA's Dawn spacecraft orbited it in 2011, and meteorites on Earth have been traced back to it.
In astrology: Read as devotion and focus — what you tend so consistently that it becomes an inner fire.
Hygiea(10)
Asteroid · C-type
The object: The fourth-largest asteroid, and round enough that astronomers have argued it should be reclassified as a dwarf planet.
In astrology: Read as wellbeing and recovery, though it is used far less often than the other four.
Chiron(2060)
Centaur · Centaur / comet
The object: Discovered in 1977 and classified as both asteroid and comet — it has a cometary coma and possibly a ring system. Its orbit between Saturn and Uranus is unstable on a million-year timescale.
In astrology: The most widely used of these: read as the “wounded healer”, a lasting sore point that becomes the thing you can help others with.
Pholus(5145)
Centaur · Red centaur
The object: One of the reddest objects in the solar system, likely coated in organic compounds processed by radiation over billions of years.
In astrology: Read as a small cause with a large consequence — the lid coming off.
Nessus(7066)
Centaur · Centaur
The object: Takes about 122 years to orbit the Sun, crossing from near Saturn out past Neptune.
In astrology: Read as long cycles of harm and accountability — patterns that end when someone finally names them.
Chariklo(10199)
Centaur · Ringed centaur
The object: The largest known centaur, and the first object smaller than a planet ever found to have rings — two of them, discovered in 2013.
In astrology: Read as holding space for others — capacity and boundaries at once.
Asteroid or centaur?
The asteroids here — Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta and Hygiea — orbit in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter. They were the first minor bodies ever found, beginning with Ceres in 1801, and for a few decades each was counted as a planet before astronomers realised how many there were.
The centaurs — Chiron, Pholus, Nessus and Chariklo — orbit out among the giant planets, on unstable paths that will eventually throw them into the inner solar system or out of it entirely. They are icy, comet-like, and none was known before 1977. They are named after the centaurs of Greek myth precisely because they are hybrids: half asteroid, half comet.
Common questions
- Does AsterNym show my Chiron sign?
- No. The library that computes every position on this site covers the Sun, Moon and eight planets, and has no ephemeris for Chiron or any other minor body. We would rather tell you that than print a number we cannot stand behind.
- Is Chiron a planet?
- No. It is a centaur — a small icy body orbiting between Saturn and Uranus — and it behaves as both asteroid and comet. It was discovered in 1977 and is about 200 km across.
- Are asteroids real astrology?
- They are genuinely used, particularly Chiron and the four main asteroids, and there is a real body of modern practice behind them. They are also much younger and far less settled than the planets: none was known before 1801, and interpretations vary widely between astrologers.
- Will you add them later?
- Possibly. It needs a separate ephemeris and a decision about which bodies to include, and we would want the interpretations to be as carefully sourced as the rest of the site before shipping them.
What we do calculate
Ten chart bodies, every house, every aspect, and the real sky over your birthplace — each from published astronomical data.