A Rare Moment of Evolution

by David A. Wheatley

​The rendezvous of Saturn and Neptune at zero degrees of Aries wasn’t consummated before they both went retrograde, pulled away from each other, and back into Pisces. By the end of the year, they will move forward and will finally meet over a period of several weeks, from late February into April, before separating again for the final time in this conjunction. Saturn moves more quickly around the Sun and will pull away from Neptune, spending around two years in Aries, leaving Neptune there for more than a decade. 

At the time Saturn and Neptune finally make the stage under the lights with the band playing, the interstellar object or comet 3I/Atlas will arrive at Jupiter in mid-March.  ESA, the European Space Agency’s JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer probe), is currently enroute to Jupiter to study its icy moons, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. An attempt will be made to study Atlas from nearby. At the time of this writing, ESA has just released its images of Atlas as it cleared passing by the Sun. These results are still being examined. Atlas’s coma appears to be bluer, but it still does not have a tail typical of comets within this solar system. An appeal has been made to the US government to allow NASA to release any information that was not previously made public due to the government shutdown. 

​A comet more familiar to this solar system, A6 Lemmon, made its perihelion at the Sun on November 8th. Lemmon has a conventional tail; it has always had a tail as it approaches the Sun.
Another recently discovered comet, V1 Borisov - not to be confused with the Borisov comet known to be the first interstellar comet on record (also found by Gennadiy Borisov in Crimea) - was discovered in recent weeks, located between Earth and Atlas. This new discovery, V1 Borisov, also did not have a tail, just a coma, like 3IAtlas. V1 Borisov was closer to the Sun on its orbit than Atlas ever was and had a trajectory more conventional than 3IAtlas. But after little more than a week of being discovered, V1Borisov has disintegrated. Since I began researching and writing this, it has disappeared and is presumed to have disintegrated. More details may emerge in the coming days, but it can no longer be found.
I know, there will be people saying it was a spaceship and it simply relocated or turned on its cloaking device. Maybe so. 

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​Atlas is now speeding away from the Sun and will make its closest position to Earth on December 19, and by close, I mean 180 million miles away. That’s not so close. More often than people realize unless they monitor such things, asteroids pass much closer to us, between the Earth and the Moon, so 180 million mikes away is not something to worry about. Many Earth-based facilities will be trained on it at that time, gathering data. Atlas continues on to possibly intersect Jupiter in mid-March. Jupiter’s gravity is formidable; it can affect something like Atlas and alter its trajectory, as it did the Shoemaker-Levy comet in 1993, first pulling it apart and then pulling the pieces into a series of crash landings or crashes on Jupiter. 

Table of Asteroid Symbols, 1864

Astrology increasingly includes planetoids and asteroids in chart analysis. Comets don’t get the interest from Astrologers that asteroids do because asteroids can have a genesis and composition to those of a planet, can have rotation on an axis, and sometimes a degree of gravity. Asteroids are solid objects, and some have great mineral wealth. It is believed that asteroids are responsible for transporting water in the form of ice to a planet like ours, if not microbial life as well. Comets are dirty balls of ice, sometimes with a rock nucleus, and usually burn up upon entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. 

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Monitor asteroids' proximity to Earth and solar weather here: https://www.spaceweather.com/

Asteroids in the natal chart: https://horoscopes.astro-seek.com/asteroids-astrology-online-calculator

Atlas is currently making aspects to individual natal charts. At a minimum, Atlas is a stimulator, an energetic catalyst. It’s activating energetically every planet, asteroid, or invisible point in a chart by aspect as it moves through our solar system, through our psychic body at twice the speed the Earth goes around the Sun. It’s an incredibly rare event arriving with another incredibly rare event, the Saturn Neptune conjunction, sextile Uranus and Pluto, itself a one in thousands of lifetimes event.
The projected trajectory of Atlas towards Jupiter has changed a little since it interacted with the Sun. I haven’t seen a comparison between the former and the latter trajectory except that it remains close to Jupiter.
3IAtlas was physically energized by huge solar flares erupting after it passed out of sight behind the Sun. Ionization of Atlas’s particles of dust must have taken place in the repeating waves of above-average-powerful solar electromagnetic plasma from solar flares, if not simply because of close proximity to our star, the Sun, which is the first star Atlas has encountered in millions of years. Three or four huge flares exchanged electrical charge and plasma between the Sun and Atlas as it passed behind the Sun from our point of view. These flares blasted Venus with a 100% impact and Mars with something less. Astrologically, Venus and Mars are vital parts of our astrological psyche, but they have been impacted by solar flares before; that isn’t so uncommon. As an energetic body in the solar system, Atlas has moved in and out of aspect with Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto as well as other planets and asteroids in our personal charts. This is an alien visitor to our solar system and it's an energetic body not normally in our astrological body or psyche. 

​When we began to get a glimpse of Atlas as it pulled out from behind the Sun, its coma was more light bluish. It still did not develop the conventional tail. Estimates of how much mass it may have lost to grow brighter and discharge material from its body, are not settled. Typically, a comet loses from one quarter to one third of its mass due to interacting with the Sun in closer proximity, breaking down into particles that form the coma and tail. Some comets break apart. Atlas does not appear to have lost mass in its close interaction with the Sun. Oumuamua, in 2017, the second interstellar object to be observed passing through our solar system, passed much closer to the Sun than Atlas did. Oumuamua was not a ball of ice; it was an elongated potato-shaped rock that emitted no tail or gas as it passed between the planet Mercury and the Sun. Atlas has been in the darkest reaches of space outside this solar system, or any other, for millions of years. Approaching this star, our Sun, it was exposed to something that it had not been close to perhaps ever in its existence or at least in some millions of years. 
China released its low-resolution imagery of Atlas in the first week of November, and we learned and saw nothing new. It’s really up to NASA to release what they have on record, but it is being held back due to the current government shutdown. That may provide more illuminating physical data.

​The sunspots that erupted in huge ways on the far side of the Sun during Atlas’s passage on that side had been facing Earth the week before Atlas disappeared behind the Sun. While facing Earth, the sunspots erupted mid-range M-class flares. These are not disruptive to Earth-based technology, except such as when they interfere with ham radio operators. The Sun rotated these unstable sunspots around to the other side, facing the passing 3IAtlas; they erupted with G5 peak level X-class flares. G5 is the highest level of solar eruption impact to impact us on Earth, and we haven’t experienced such an event since 1859, when the only technology on Earth was telegraph wires, which were fried. Today, satellites in orbit would be damaged and likely unable to sustain orbit under their own power. Earth-based technology, unless it’s sufficiently shielded, would be damaged, and power grids would be expected to fail.
Those sunspots that blasted Venus and Mars about ten days ago are rotating around to face Earth again in the third week of November. Large, powerful sunspots can sustain themselves for a few rotations of the Sun. However, we can’t say what level of eruption they might produce, if any.
I’ve been monitoring the Sun’s weather for about 17 years, almost daily, and on multiple occasions, I’ve seen huge, unstable sunspots quiet down into a docile state when facing Earth, and erupt with ferocity as soon as they are facing away, as if someone is at the switch. This mechanism is not fully understood. 

As of Saturday, the 8th of November, 3IAtlas began erupting with multiple eruptions and subsequent jets from escaping gases. This gives the impression, without looking at it, that it has multiple tails, but in fact, the angle from which we might be able to see it is still not ideal to determine if it has a tail trailing away from the Sun, which comets typically do. We are witnessing erupting jets in many directions.
Atlas is departing from its close approach to the Sun (which wasn’t really THAT close), where it got bathed in large solar flares that ionized Atlas’s coma dust, and it was reduced in size in order to produce the enlarged coma. There weren’t multiple jets outgassing or a tail in its initial closer passage with the Sun. However, since departing the Sun, something has instigated a change. Since its interaction with the Sun, releasing more of its particular dust particles and now out-gassing, Atlas is leaving behind traces of its entire history of travel in our neighborhood of the solar system, dating back to its origin. We will pass through those particles of cosmic interstellar dust in the New Year. 

The arrival of Saturn and Neptune in Aries together has been talked about at length, and mostly it remains to be seen. The aspecting accents of Pluto and Uranus, rounding out the full outer planet interaction, will bring us through next year and be with us through 2028 technically; however, the reverberations will unfold for years after. The next two to three years will shape the future. 

USA

​The USA faces a Uranus Return to its natal chart placement in late 2026-28. The USA birth as everyone knows was formed in revolution, Uranus’s specialty. A Uranian Return revisits this spirit of upheaval and need to evolve in unexpected ways. Uranus’ specialty is surprises that force innovation, often stressful, and often with consequences we didn’t plan on, which can be good and bad. It’s a time of renewal in the US chart, a Uranus return to its natal position. The values and goals of the initial revolution face a review. How did we do? The collective psyche determines how the existing form should be reformed or dissolved, if possible. Or give birth to something else.
Clearly, the US can use some reformation. Many previous periods of tumult and change, such as the Saturn/Neptune opposition in the Civil War aspect. And for other nations as well, making a 90-degree square in the Crimean War of 1852-53, which also involved Uranus conjunct Saturn square Neptune.
By the time Saturn is done in Aries and moves into Taurus, Uranus is in the midst of its return for the US presidential election year. Saturn in Taurus slows everything down that was stirred up while it was in Aries, probably because of hard times.

USA - RELATIONSHIPS Next year, when Saturn and Neptune finally splash into Aries together, they will make a 90-degree square to the US natal Venus at 3 degrees of Cancer in the US 7th house of close relationships, both business and personal. This will be a confusing, discordant time, a lack of control, and a tendency to react with a hard, militaristic attitude. The Police state. Relationships with others are a reflection of our relationships to the parts of ourselves. Our identity, ego, personality, soul and mind are confused and fall back on the Saturn in Aries character, the overbearing parent, and combined with Neptune in Aries as the holy warrior, believing in the sacredness of a thing whether it has it or not. Seeking refuge in old values that stress control, which often leads to a breakup in relationships, pushing the other person away. Sometimes, the only way to get over the cause of discordance is to break up and reform after a period of introspection. Relationships need to struggle sometimes to find the nuggets of great value. Saturn first, then Neptune in the next several years after squaring the US natal Venus, will square natal Jupiter and finally the Sun. All in the 7th house. This is an extended period of struggle, several years of it. During this time, after Uranus has completed the return to its natal place in 2028, Uranus too enters the US natal 7th house, bringing its sometimes brilliant, sometimes erratic, and insane attitude of sudden change into the US 7th house. Expect the US to undergo an extended period of reform for years to come. Things will not settle down or return to normal, a thing of the past not to be seen again. 

USA - WORKPLACES   Meanwhile, with Pluto in Aquarius making a 120-degree trine aspect to Uranus in the US 6th house, AI will reinvent the workplace. This begins in earnest in the fall of 2026 and lasts for two years. New technology will also bring things like fusion energy generation and expand medical technologies with the sextiles to Neptune from Pluto and Uranus, though the way this happens is most likely under the pressures of problem-solving. 

USA - WORKERS   Next summer, Mars will conjunct Uranus in the US 6th house. Mars will conjunct Uranus while it’s in Gemini four times over a number of years. This is a worker revolt, probably for a few reasons, that ultimately reshapes many parts of American society. It will surprise a lot of people who, for example, are terrified of the new mayor-elect in Manhattan. What if his ideas produce something really good? With Mars on Uranus in the 6th house four times over many years, this is a series of stages introducing new ideas for working people, not just due to AI. New ideas providing wages for work. New labor laws.

Israel

​Israel’s natal chart places Venus close to the same placement as the US natal placement of Venus, facing the same 90-degree squares from transiting Saturn and Neptune, but in Israel’s chart, this is in the 9th house. This is a severe (Saturn) discord and hard-hearted management confronting beliefs of the national ideal. A need to restructure it. Neptune repeats this stressful focus with inner self-doubt, dissolving the beliefs people thought were permanent. A depressing time forcing introspection, repair and new clarification of higher values. Uranus will conjunct Israel’s natal 8th house Mercury in two years. A radical new movement. It will surprise many people - a brilliant shift: new plans, discoveries of a positive nature, long-term, upsetting for some short-term, but inevitable. Israel will have a long period of stressful Pluto transits to its natal Moon, Pluto, and Saturn in the 10th house. Pluto will reveal some ugly truths to the world from deep in the national psyche, discovering a need for deep purging. These things are ultimately positive opportunities for growth but can also be over the top violent and destructive. But whatever is destroyed will be rebuilt, once the creatures in the basement are let out into the sunlight. 

Addendum
More information, with the best photo yet (though still not terrific), has provided further evidence that 3IAtlas has an anti-tail in addition to "jets" produced by outgassing. The anti-tail continues to be opposite the usual or expected tail of a comet in relation to the Sun. The jets produced by outgassing in any comet can be in any direction, determined by the eruption of materials in the comet interacting with the recent and ongoing passage by the Sun. 
Avi Loeb, a notable astrophysicist, has calculated the mass of 3IAtlas based on these latest observations and what is required to produce outgassed material to be over 50 billion tons at 10 kilometers or larger. He also suggests a smaller mass and size if the comet is manufactured technology. His latest commentary can be found here:
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/the-remarkable-large-scale-structure-of-anti-tail-and-tail-jets-from-3i-atlas-242c534cf7b3

​Michio Kaku, a well-known theoretical physicist, suggests that the 3IAtlas is an object 7 billion years old, dating back to the early moments of the physical universe. Part of his reasoning is that for something to have amassed its large size in the voids of space outside existence in a galaxy or solar system, as comets conventionally are.
https://mkaku.org/home/tag/3i-atlas/  

The implications of 3IAtlas from an Astrological perspective grow more remarkable considering the potential age and existence of Atlas from the voids of space, entering into our spheres of consciousness. Especially at this time, with a rare Astrological event involving the outer planets, as mentioned. There are more than 8 billion human souls alive on Earth today, more than at any time in our species' existence that we know of. Human consciousness and life on Earth, as well as other life forms in the physical and nonphysical solar system, are in a rare moment of evolution. 

​Comments welcome.
​David can be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
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