The ancients took an intense interest in the stars, and noticed how the stars always moved across the backdrop of the sky, but all moved at the same rate. They appeared to make patterns in the sky, which we call constellations. Some “stars”, however, seem to move against this backdrop and we call these bodies “planets” from the Greek word for “wanderer”. So in this sense, a “planet” is any heavenly body that moves relative to the stars, so in astrology terms includes the Sun and the Moon (which technically aren’t planets at all).

There is a big gap between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter, and between these two planets lies the asteroid belt, an area where there are literally thousands of pieces of rock orbiting around the Sun. Astronomers believe that the asteroids are the remnant of what was once a planet.

Since there are so many of them, it is difficult to see whether they can be of any use in astrology, but many astrologers choose to use the four major asteroids - and I’ve certainly found that they seem to have an effect in a chart.

As well as asteroids, there are other bodies orbiting the Sun beyond the orbit of Saturn. The first of these, Chiron, was discovered in 1975 but many more have been discovered since then. These bodies are known as centaurs and Chiron is named after a mythical centaur - half man, half horse - of Greek mythology.

A lot of research is going on in the field of centaurs, and the Bristol School of Astrology website has some articles about centaurs which give more information.

The table below shows the basic keywords associated with the four major asteroids, and with Chiron. However, since there so many minor bodies it can be illuminating to find your own personal asteroid - there is probably one with your own name. Until recently, knowing there was an asteroid with your name wouldn’t have been any help - but now, thanks to NASA, you can find out where it is in your birth chart! Click here to find out how to use the NASA ephemeris online.

To find out where these bodies are in your chart, you can do this online using the “Extended Chart Selection” option on Astrodienst (see my article on Online Charts on details of how to use the Astrodienst site), or by selecting “Include Minors” and then using the “Restriction” option to select only those bodies you need in Astrolog.