Aries Equinox – March 21, 2007, 00:07 UT

THE SUN is conjunct dwarf planet Ceres and centaur planet Bienor. Ceres is in the first degree of Aries together with the Sun, Bienor still in the late degrees of Pisces. The Sun squares Pluto and the Galactic Core.

The Moon is in conjunction with centaur planet Asbolus, dwarf planet Eris (both in Aries), and Venus (in Taurus). The Moon and Venus both are trineing Pluto. The Moon opposes asteroid Juno and centaur planet Echeclus. The opposition between the Moon and comet-like Echeclus is tight.

Mars is in conjunction with Chiron and Neptune in Aquarius and opposite retrograding Saturn. Mars sextiles Jupiter and cubewano Quaoar in Sagittarius and Asbolus in Aries. Jupiter and asteroid Toro are trineing Asbolus and Eris. Neptune septiles Pluto. Chiron is semisquare to the Sun and to the Aries Point and also to Pluto.

Asbolus is approaching Eris and the exact conjunction is going to happen at 20+ degrees Aries on the 30th of March, the day before Pluto stations retrograde. Actually there is a meeting of three planets: Asbolus, Eris, and 1992 QB1.

1992 QB1 was the first object which was discovered beyond Pluto. The discoverers, David Jewitt and Jane Luu, spent several years on top of Mauna Kea searching the sky without any certainty that they would actually find anything from the region. Then finally, in August 1992, they found a faint object, 1992 QB1. The discovery position was the first degree of Aries, the point at which we are having the Sun on the 21st of March — the Aries Point.

The discovery of 1992 QB1 proved that the Kuiper Belt existed. In the 1950s, astronomer Gerard Kuiper had suggested that the belt was the source of short period comets, but the belt had remained theoretical. The belt was named after Kuiper after the discovery of 1992 QB1, and QB1 has given its name to a whole class of objects since — cubewanos (also called classical Kuiper Belt Objects).

Asbolus, Eris, and 1992 QB1 almost met already in the summer of 2006 within one degree orb but they did not quite make it then. All three went into retrograde motion and Asbolus, which is the fastest of these three bodies, began to draw away from the other two again. Since January 2007 they have all been moving direct again. The next couple of weeks following the Aries Equinox, these three planets will be travelling together in a conjunction within one degree.

Quaoar = 17 Sagittarius 42 r
Asbolus = 19 Aries 45
1992 QB1 = 20 Aries 05
Eris = 20 Aries 39
Toro = 20 Sagittarius 47
Echeclus = 26 Libra 13 r
Bienor = 28 Pisces 27

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