Asteroid Psyche was discovered by Annibale de Gasparis on March 17th, 1852 in Naples. Whilst Psyche followed the same established pattern of being allocated a symbol (a butterfly’s wing and a star), she was the first asteroid to become known by her astronomical number (16) written within a circle. Continue reading
Vesta was discovered by Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers on the 29th March 1807 in Bremen and named by astronomer friend Carl Friedrich Gauss who helped to calculate Vesta’s orbit. Vesta is the 3rd largest asteroid after Ceres and Pallas and the 4th to be discovered (hence its number 4). The symbol of Vesta used in astrology was designed by Gauss and indicates the altar of Vesta and its sacred fire. Continue reading
1930 Asteroid Lucifer was discovered by E. Roemer at Flagstaff (USNO) on the 29th October 1964.
Lucifer’s Tale
Once you start reading into the mythology, you soon find that there is a whole hoo-ha on who exactly Lucifer was. Notably, the name (or rather the Hebrew equivalent) only appears once in the Hebrew Bible and in translation the King James version followed suit. Continue reading
Asteroid Sisyphus was discovered on the 5th December 1972 at 02:28 by Paul Wild at Zimmerwald observatory in Bern, Switzerland. The largest of the Apollo asteroids, Sisyphus is an Earth-crosser meaning that it’s passage through the sky takes it through Earth’s orbit. Continue reading