Full Moon in Libra — April 19, 2019, 11:12 UT
The Full Moon takes place in the last degree of Libra on April 19, 2019. The Moon is in conjunction with a trans-Neptunian Rhadamanthus, and the Sun in Aries is in conjunction with Uranus. The Sun enters Taurus the next day and conjoins Uranus in early Taurus a couple of days later.
In Libra the planets are seeking balance, equilibrium and justice. The fulfilment of this desire may get disturbed because of the edginess of the Full Moon, the last degree placement, and the influence of the unpredictable Uranus.
The Full Moon falls near the Mercury of Antti Rinne in late Libra. He is the chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Finland, which will take the lead on government formation talks next week. The SDP was the biggest party in the parliamentary elections last Sunday, but it gained only one more seat in the new parliament than the Finns Party and two more than the National Coalition Party, so the negotiations are not expected to be easy.
38083 Rhadamanthus is a trans-Neptunian minor planet discovered in 1999. It is currently retrograding in the first degree of Scorpio, where it entered in last November. On April 30, Rhadamanthus will step back to Libra, and make its final ingress to Scorpio on this round in September 2019.
The orbital period of Rhadamanthus is around 241 years. It is possibly a dwarf planet with the estimated diameter of 226 km. It was named after the wise king of Crete in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Europa. Quoting the official naming citation, “Because of his just and upright life, after death he was appointed a judge of the dead and the ruler of Elysium, a blissfully beautiful area of the Underworld where those favored by the gods spent their life after death.”
At the time of its naming Rhadamanthus was thought to be a plutino but no longer is. According to the naming rules of the International Astronomical Union, plutinos are given mythological names associated with the underworld, so the name was chosen according to the rule. If the orbit of Rhadamanthus had been better known at the time, the name had been chosen differently.
Also the astrological meaning of Rhadamanthus has been elusively defined. At least I haven’t been able to understand it so far based on the examples of the Sun-Rhadamanthus conjunctions.
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