The asteroids: the four goddesses and the bodies beside them

The ten planets do the heavy lifting in a chart — but they're not the only bodies astrologers watch. Out beyond the "big ten" is a swarm of small worlds called the asteroids, and a handful of them have earned a place in a reading. The best-known four are named after goddesses of Greek and Roman myth, and they add texture the main planets can miss — especially around care, craft, commitment and devotion. Beside them sit a few more: one for wellbeing, three for the soul and for love, and one large body named not after a goddess but after a town.

Where they are, and why goddesses

The asteroids are small, planet-like bodies orbiting the Sun, most of them in a belt between Mars and Jupiter. They were only discovered from 1801 onwards, and the first four found were given the names of four classical goddesses. That's telling: the traditional planets skew heavily masculine (only the Moon and Venus are "feminine"), so the asteroids quietly fill in a whole range of feminine and relational themes the older system is thin on.

They came into astrology much later than into astronomy. In 1973 Eleanor Bach published the first tables of the big four's positions for astrologers; in 1986 Demetra George's Asteroid Goddesses turned them into a working part of many astrologers' practice; and J. Lee Lehman's The Ultimate Asteroid Book (1988) set out the idea most asteroid astrologers still work by: an asteroid's name points to its meaning. Hold on to that — it's the key to everything below.

The famous four

• Ceres — nurture. The great mother: how you care and are cared for, food and comfort, and the cycle of holding on and letting go. Named for the goddess of the harvest (the Greek Demeter, whose daughter was taken to the underworld and returned each spring), she's about nourishment in every sense — and about loss and return.
• Pallas (Pallas Athene) — wisdom and craft. Creative intelligence, strategy, pattern-spotting, skill. Where you're clever with your hands or your plans — the wise problem-solver.
• Juno — commitment. Partnership, marriage, loyalty and what you need (and fear) in a committed bond. The relationship asteroid, named after the queen of the gods, who was both the guardian of marriage and, famously, wronged within one.
• Vesta — devotion. Focus, dedication, the sacred flame — where you pour yourself in wholeheartedly, and what you'd happily be "married to your work" about. Her priestesses kept Rome's hearth-fire burning, and she is the one asteroid that can, on rare nights, just be seen with the naked eye.

Hygiea: wellbeing

Hygiea was found in 1849 at Naples and is one of the biggest bodies in the belt — fourth by size, after Ceres, Vesta and Pallas. She's named after the Greek goddess of health, the daughter of Asclepius, the god of medicine, and her name gives us the word hygiene. Where her father cured illness, Hygieia stood for staying well in the first place: balance, moderation, the small daily habits that keep a person whole.

In a chart, Hygiea is read as your relationship with your own wellbeing — the style of your self-care by sign, and the area of life where balance comes into focus by house. Hygiea in Virgo might keep careful routines; in Leo, feel best through play and creativity; in the 6th house, put daily habits at the heart of things. Some astrologers also see in her a tendency to worry, or to chase a purity that's hard to live up to. She describes inclinations, never health itself — a question about your health belongs with a doctor, not a chart.

Psyche, Eros and Amor: the soul and love

These three share one story. In the Roman tale told by Apuleius, Psyche — a mortal woman whose name is the Greek word for soul — is loved in secret by the god of love, loses him when she breaks his one rule, and wins him back through long, patient trials. Astrologers have given each figure an asteroid, and together they make a small, lovely trio:

• Psyche (found 1852, a large, unusually metal-rich asteroid and the target of a space probe of the same name, due to reach it in 2029) — the soul's sensitivity. Where you're most open, most easily moved and most exposed; old tender spots; and the capacity for a real meeting of souls.
• Eros (found 1898, the first asteroid known to come inside the orbit of Mars and pass close to the Earth) — desire. Passion, attraction and what you crave; the creative fire that wanting something lights. Eros is the charge in love, and more broadly what makes you feel intensely alive.
• Amor (found 1932, a small near-Earth body that gave its name to a whole family of them, Eros among them) — tender love. Amor is the Latin name for the same god, and astrologers read it as his gentler face: compassion, kindness and affection given without conditions.

Read them side by side and with Venus and Mars, which carry love and desire on the larger scale. Eros close to your Venus might sharpen what attracts you; Amor there might soften how you show it; Psyche touching the Moon might describe someone who feels things to the bone. In a relationship chart, one person's Eros or Psyche lying on the other's personal planets is one of the classic small signatures astrologers look for.

Interamnia: the space between

Interamnia is the odd one out. Found in 1910 by Vincenzo Cerulli at his observatory in Teramo, in Italy, it's one of the largest asteroids of all — around 330 km across, fifth in size, and so nearly round that some astronomers count it as a possible dwarf planet. But it isn't named after a goddess. Cerulli gave it the Latin name of his home town: Interamnia, "between the rivers", because Teramo stands where two streams meet.

Interamnia is a recent addition to astrology, with only a small body of interpretation behind it — far less than the goddesses have. Following the name principle, the astrologers who use it read it as the space between: where you stand between two worlds, two loyalties or two ways of life, and how you bring them together — the bridge-builder, the person who belongs to two places, the meeting of two currents. Some add a sense of home ground, from the town it honours. Treat it as a question to ask of a chart rather than an answer: if it sits right on a planet and the theme rings true, it adds a precise note; if not, nothing depends on it.

How to read an asteroid

Whichever one you're looking at, the method is the same — and it's the same as for a planet, just on a smaller scale:

• Sign — the style of the theme. Ceres in Aries nurtures by doing; Ceres in Pisces by sensing.
• House — the area of life where it plays out. Ceres in the career house, say, might care for the world through their work.
• Aspects to the personal planets — this is where an asteroid really earns its keep. A contact with the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars or an angle ties the asteroid's theme to something central in the person.
• Tight orbs only — keep to a degree or two, not the wider orbs you'd give the planets. An asteroid a few degrees off a planet is background; one exactly on it can speak loudly.

The best sign that an asteroid matters is repetition: when it says something the planets are already saying — Juno on the Descendant in a chart already full of partnership, Vesta on the Sun of someone who lives for their vocation — it sharpens the picture. On its own, against the grain of everything else, let it go.

Keep it light

Asteroids are an optional extra, not a foundation. There are hundreds of thousands of them, and enthusiasts add all sorts — but you need none of them to read a chart well. Think of them as fine detail: worth a look once the planets, signs, houses and aspects are comfortable, and especially handy when a chart seems to be "missing" a theme (deep care, real devotion, a particular kind of love) that the main planets don't quite name. The big four carry the most weight; Hygiea, Psyche, Eros and Amor are finer threads again; and Interamnia is the faintest, still being learned.

One last thought

I like the asteroids because they were astrology noticing a gap and filling it. For centuries the sky's cast of characters was mostly gods and kings; then along came four goddesses to speak for nurture, wisdom, partnership and devotion — and after them a goddess of wellbeing, a soul and two faces of love, and even a little town between two rivers. These are some of the most human things there are. You don't have to use them. But it's rather lovely that they're there, waiting, if the rest of the chart ever leaves something important unsaid.