Full Moon in Cancer — January 16, 2014, 04:52 UT

The Full Moon of January took place in Cancer, one of the three water signs of the zodiac, and the home sign of the Moon. In the background of the dynamic aspects and main operators of the present chart is a more subtle influence, a precise Grand trine in Water, formed by three distant minor planets. All three objects are named after water deities from mythologies from different parts of the world. What is remarkable about this current Grand trine is that because of the long orbits of the objects in question, this is the first Grand trine in Water formed by these particular objects during the Common Era.

The three occupants are Varuna, Salacia and Huya. All three are trans-Neptunian objects, and big enough to be probable dwarf planets. The Full Moon appeared in one of the corners of the rare Grand trine, at 25+ degrees of Cancer, in exact conjunction with Varuna, to the degree. Varuna has the longest orbital period of the three, Salacia is the biggest of them, and Huya’s orbit goes furthest away from the Sun.

38628 Huya is a plutino and has got the shortest orbital period of the three trans-Neptunian objects in question, nearly 248 years. Like Pluto, Huya spends part of its orbit closer to the Sun than the planet Neptune. Currently Huya is inside the orbit of Neptune. It will come to perihelion, the point in its orbit where it is nearest to the Sun, in December 2014, at 27+ degrees of Scorpio.

Huya was discovered in March 2000 in Venezuela, and afterwards has been found in pre-discovery images dating back to 1996. Huya was named after Juyá, the rain god of the indigenous Wayuu people of Venezuela and Colombia. In 2012 Huya was discovered to have a satellite. The binary companion has not been named yet.

20000 Varuna is named after an important ancient Hindu deity. Varuna presided over the waters of the heaven and of the ocean and was the guardian of immortality. He rode on a mythic sea creature, a crocodile named Makara. Varuna is the god of all forms of the water element, particularly the oceans, and he can be identified with Greek Poseidon and Roman Neptune.

20000 Varuna was discovered in November 2000. The precovery images are from 1953. It is a cubewano on a near circular orbit around the Sun. The orbital period is approximately 281 years. Varuna has a rapid rotational period of approximately 6.34 hours. This is rare for objects as big as Varuna, suggesting that its shape is elongated.

120347 Salacia is one of the largest objects in the Kuiper belt, over 900 km in diameter. This cubewano was discovered in September 2004. A couple of years later its tiny companion Actaea was found. Together they form a binary system. From the total mass of the system, Salacia’s portion is about 96 percent. The orbital period around the Sun is approximately 274 years.

In Roman mythology Salacia was the goddess of salt water and the wife of Neptune. She was also ruling over the springs of highly mineralized waters. Actaea got her name from one of the Nereids, the sea nymphs who accompanied Poseidon. Those friendly mermaids are helpful to sailors plowing through the stormy seas.

Because of the long orbits and slow motion of these objects, Varuna and Salacia have been forming trine in Cancer and Pisces already twenty years.

The water element represents emotions, feelings and the unconscious. The trine aspect provides vision and ideas. The Sun represents purpose and will, expression, “the self”. The Sun means energy, and in the chart, the Sun in the midpoint of one side of the Grand trine, in the industrious sign of Capricorn, offers the point where the passive and static flow of the trine pattern has the opportunity to break outside and help us to put our visions into effect.

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