Origin 1802
Pallas, more fully Pallas Athena, was discovered by Heinrich Olbers in 1802, the second of the belt objects to be found. Its symbol is the spear of Pallas Athena and was introduced in 1802 by Baron Franz Xaver von Zach, one of the astronomers organising the search for a planet between Mars and Jupiter; like the other early asteroid signs it is an attribute emblem of the deity whose name the body carries, and its origin is documented. Athena is the goddess of strategy rather than slaughter, of craft, weaving, statecraft and the disciplined intelligence that wins by design, and she is born fully armed from the head of Zeus. Astrologically the body was taken into use mainly from the later twentieth century, and it is read along those lines: pattern recognition, craft and skill, strategy, creative intelligence, and the father-identified daughter who wins standing through competence.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period Place of OriginDiscovered in Europe (Germany); used in modern Western astrology. 2 Form
Type of SymbolAstral figure: sun, moon or planet 1 Geometric Form Learn More
An Asteroid in Astrology
Pallas is one of the largest asteroids, roughly 513 kilometres across, and one of the four main asteroids used in modern astrology, named for Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom and skilled warfare. It was found within a year of Ceres, prompting Baron Franz Xaver von Zach, who had organised a network of astronomers to search systematically for a missing planet between Mars and Jupiter, to recognise that more than one such body existed. Together with Ceres, Pallas was for several decades counted as a planet in its own right in astronomical tables, before the growing number of similar discoveries led astronomers to reclassify these bodies as a distinct class of minor planets, or asteroids.
Like Ceres, Pallas was given an individual pictorial glyph at discovery in keeping with the convention then used for planets, a courtesy not extended to most asteroids found after the 1850s, which meant Pallas retained a recognisable symbol available for later astrological revival. Pallas also carries the most tilted orbit of the four, inclined some 34.8 degrees to the ecliptic, a peculiarity noted by astronomers from soon after its discovery and one that still makes it a comparatively difficult target for spacecraft, unrelated to its glyph history but part of what marked it out among the earliest asteroid finds as distinctly unlike the tidy, nearly circular planetary orbits then known.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Jupiter directly: "search for a planet between Mars and Jupiter; like the other early asteroid signs it is an attribute emblem of the deity whose name the body carries, and its origin is documented."
Mars, Deities This source names Mars directly: "the search for a planet between Mars and Jupiter; like the other early asteroid signs it is an attribute emblem of the deity whose name the body carries, and its origin is documented."
This source names Pallas directly: "Pallas, more fully Pallas Athena, was discovered by Heinrich Olbers in 1802, the second of the belt objects to be found."
Zeus, Deities This source names Zeus directly: "is born fully armed from the head of Zeus."
Symbol Of
The symbol's own cited description identifies its glyph as that of this planet.
Sources
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