I'm an astronomy nerd. C: I have a degree in physics with a concentration in astronomy and teaching, and primarily got into that field due to Sailor Moon (space! it's the shiz.), so I thought it would be fun (and super nerdy of me, sorry) to post about the cool astronomy things that Naoko puts in the stories and explain the concept in a little greater detail. I don't intend on going too deep because, let's face it, if you saw all the information presented on one of these topics explained to the fullest, you'd take one look at the huge glob of text and go 'OH NO, I'M NOT READING THAT.'  
:lolz:
So I'm doing a quick synopsis of the topics and opening up the floor for comments, questions, observations, etc. that you might have, along with any suggestions or requests for future topics. Though this is entitled "Astronomy in Sailor Moon," I'd also be open to delving into the mythologies that affect it, too. The first thing I'm going to jump into are the overarching enemies of each arc, and I'll keep an updated list of topics and their content (in spoilers) on this main thread in case someone wanted to look it up later without having to sift through other posts, as I'll be adding fresh topics as new posts and updating them here to act as a bump.

So, let's start!
Enemy Boss -> Astronomical event/term/ideal

Metalia -> Sunspots:

Wiseman -> Nemesis/Traveling Planets:

Pharaoh 90 -> Tau Ceti:

Nehelenia -> Dark side of the Moon:

Galaxia -> Sagittarius Zero Star:

Proposed topics:

Planet Vulcan:

Astarte, Lilith and Nibiru -> Asteroids and imaginary planets:

The Amazon Quartet (&Pluto) -> Asteroids and Planetary Classification:

^^ Again, any questions, comments, suppositions, requests, etc. would be super fun to play with!

Sailor Planet Power! Astronomy, Astrology and Mythology about our senshi!
Sailor Mercury
Sailor Venus
Sailor Mars
Sailor Jupiter
Sailor Saturn
Sailor Uranus
Sailor Neptune
Sailor Pluto
Sailor Moon

In Sailor Moon, the center of the galaxy and the home of the Galaxy Cauldron, the place where stars are born and stars die, lies in Sagittarius Zero Star. In Astronomy, Sagittarius Zero star is actually Sagittarius A*; the ‘Zero Star’ portion of the name implies its place on the map of the Milky Way’s galactic coordinate system – at roughly 0° galactic longitude and 0° galactic latitude. And, like Naoko implied, it is a place where stars are born and stars die, though maybe not as literally as one might think.

Sagittarius A is the location of the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy. At the end of any star’s life, when all of its fuel is exhausted and there is nothing left to burn (or fuse, as is the case), the star’s balance of gravity and pressure shifts to the side of gravity, and it starts to collapse in upon itself. However, once it reaches a certain point, the matter that has collapsed inwards suddenly hits a denser area and it starts a shockwave that shoots the matter back out again, creating an explosion of heat, light, and particles that fling themselves away from the remnants of the star. The heated particles, colorful and beautiful, become a planetary nebulae (note: no planets, haha, they’d be totally and completely destroyed when the star exploded), while the leftover core can become a myriad of things. For smaller, less massive stars, the core becomes a White Dwarf, an inactive core primarily of carbon atoms. Larger stars become Neutron Stars that are primarily comprised of subatomic particles that were heated so much that they are able to pack themselves together incredibly tightly, allowing protons and electrons to fuse, even, and so is primarily made of super tightly packed neutrons. The cores of the largest of stars actually do not remain; the gravity becoming so great that not even light may escape the pull of the infinitely small area of space. These supermassive stars become black holes.

A black hole can continue to ‘grow’ in size by sucking in the material around it, pulling in everything in range. The bigger it gets, the more gravitational pull it has, so it can continue to get bigger until it has exhausted all of the surrounding matter (Note: when I say ‘bigger’ here, it’s not growing in size - it’s still tinier than the head of a pin, but it weights hundreds of millions of pounds; its mass is what is increasing here). Black holes can be supermassive when they’ve sucked in a lot of matter or other black holes, and it is believed that there is a SuperMassive Black Hole in the center of all spiral galaxies. In fact, it might be what started making the galaxy spin, as debris always orbits circularly(/elliptically) around a point.

So, to sum up, Sagittarius A* can be said to be where stars die because stars can be sucked into the vast unknown of the supermassive black hole, and it could be considered where stars are born if you stretch out the meaning. You see, for a star to be created, you have to have a lot of gas and dust in a general area, say the old planetary nebula of a previously exploded star. To make this gas and dust form into a star, you have to get it together, pushing particles into one another until there is a gravitational pull that will attract the volume of gas and dust needed to create a star. What starts that reaction is the passing of a pressure wave; kinda like how an ocean wave can push itself onto your leg, a pressure wave in space can make force particles together. These pressure waves are actually the arms of the galaxy, slowly revolving around, and those arms could have started moving due to the supermassive black hole.

Stellar Location:

This is great! Do you know anything about the hypothetical planet Vulcan... which has now been known to be nonexistant? I'd love to hear more about it!

Perhaps the "birth of stars" is taken symbolically as we know with Sailor Moon, death nearly always implies birth afterwards.

Uranus I am so happy with this thread this is so interesting and I'm glad someone brought that on and mostly especially since you know what you are talking about!

This is awesome uranus! Please keep going! What about the amazon trio or quartet?

Miki wrote:

This is great! Do you know anything about the hypothetical planet Vulcan... which has now been known to be nonexistant? I'd love to hear more about it!

^-^ Great question! At first I was like "Vulcan... that sounds familiar..." and with a quick check i was like OH! THAT ONE!

The story of Vulcan is a wobbly one (^.~ a pun that might make more sense later). It was a hypothetical planet proposed by a mathematician named La Verrier to account for the odd orbit of Mercury, which doesn't orbit strictly based on Newton's laws of Gravitation. Once he found that the data he took from Mercury was off, he tried to explain it through other methods, eventually proposing the existence of another planet orbiting between Mercury and the Sun. Astronomers were quick to believe him, as it was his math that predicted and found the planet Neptune by observing gravitational shifts in the other planets; however, no one ever found concrete evidence for Vulcan. There were a lot of false sightings of unexplained transits and Le Verrier kept trying to make the math fit the 'observations,' but none of his theoretical transit times ever came to pass (haha, pass, transit - get it? XD a transit is when a planet crosses between Earth and the Sun. C= welcome to my world!). There were a lot of false alarms, observing round sunspots (which I'll talk about later <3 metalia yay), or stars during solar eclipses, and at one point they were saying that there were two planets between Mercury and the Sun to account for all of the different orbital periods they calculated.

Anyway, it turns out that that mysterious weirdness of Mercury's orbit was solved by Einstein's theory of relativity - with applications of his theory he was able to map Mercury's orbit completely and explain for the procession in its orbit. Newer scopes and programs have concluded that there is no planet between Mercury and the sun, but there could have been comets and meteors that tricked the astronomers into believing there was something there.

Also: fun note, Vulcan was named after the god of healthy fire, which Volcanoes were also named after. It fits nicely with the theorized planet position. Oh! Other note: Le Verrier died thinking that he had proven Vulcan existed. Sadface!

Anjyu wrote:

This is awesome uranus! Please keep going! What about the amazon trio or quartet?

Ooh! I could do a few things with the Asteroid senshi in the amazon quartet, tying it into a discussion on planetary status (and Pluto!); however, I'm not sure that the Amazon Trio had much to do with space; a preliminary search leaves with Tigers eye being a gemstone (and a pretty one); fish eye could allude to the fish-eye lens, a particularly useful lens for planetariums as it bubbles out an image to fit a curve, and hawk eye was a probe NASA used. ^^ nothing too much tying them together with an astronomical event or topic. :/


But the asteroids are fun! <3 I'll add those to the list!

I think Tiger's Eye, Hawk's Eye and Fisheye are all gemstones actually...

Is there anything astrological/astronomigcal about Astarte? or Lilith? Nibiru? I remember reading something to do with Lilith and Moons...

Sorry for picking your brains I just find this stuff really interesting XD

XD Yes to all three!

Astarte

Astarte is an asteroid discovered in 1908, and is named after the Eastern Mediterranean goddess of fertility, sexuality and war -- when Greek society accepted her, they renamed her Aphrodite ^.~

Lilith

Lilith was a hypothetical second moon of Earth, the "Dark Moon" proposed in the early 1900's; they said it was the same mass as the moon, but much farther out; only fringe groups believed it actually existed due to the staggering lack of evidence. More recently it was redefined to be the second focus of the moon; as all objects in space travel in ellipses, there are two points around which they orbit; for example, Earth orbits in an ellipse with the sun at one foci; the moon orbits in an ellipse with the Earth at one foci. The second foci they gave the title of "Dark Moon Lilith" to honor the imagined moon.
Lilith is also the name given to a main belt asteroid.
Lilith is a female Mesopotamian storm demon associated with wind  and was thought to be a bearer of disease, illness, and death, or the first wife of Adam in medieval Jewish legend.

Nibiru

XD Nibiru, or Planet X, is the supposed planet-sized object that a certain group believes will crash into earth in the early 21st century (specifically, 2012) and will result in an epic cataclysm. It's not supported by any scientific evidence and has been rejected by the scientific community.
The idea for Nibiru started in 1995 with a woman who claims to be the contactee of extra-terrestrial beings from the Zeta Reticuli star system, able to communicate with them through an implant in her brain. "She states that she was chosen to warn mankind that the object would sweep through the inner Solar System in May 2003 (though that date was later abandoned) causing Earth to undergo a pole shift that would destroy most of humanity. The predicted collision has subsequently spread beyond Lieder's website and has been embraced by numerous Internet doomsday groups, most of which link the event to the 2012 phenomenon. Although the name "Nibiru" is derived from the works of the late ancient astronaut writer Zecharia Sitchin and his interpretations of Babylonian and Sumerian mythology, Sitchin denied any connection between his work and various claims of a coming apocalypse."
This idea of Nibiru has also been confused with the idea of Nemesis.

Wow thats REALLY interesting about the Lilith stuff, it makes my argument even stronger that the villains of Transylvania no Mori took some of the basics of their roles from the villains of the Dead Moon Circus!

The other day I saw one of those anime images with Sailors Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are standing in front of an artistic rendition of their planet, only to find that Neptune is standing in front of planet Uranus, and Uranus is standing in front of Neptune.
*facepalm*
So I corrected it and supplied images and thought I'd make a real planet/senshi pic for all the senshi. And then my mind goes "Oh! Include astronomical information about the planet!" and I go "Oh! Yeah! That'd be sweet!" and my mind goes "oh! And what about some astrology? It has to do with the planet, too, and the senshi - you see, you could show how Naoko used the astrology for key points in the senshi's characterization!" and I go "OOooh! I've always loved that!" and then it goes "What about mythology? Everyone knows, but really? Really does everyone know?" and I go "oh, perhaps not! And let's tie in what I can find of the Eastern mythology/astrology, too!" "Now you're thinking!" my mind applauds.
"Should I go into bloodtype and zodiac signs?"
"No." my mind said, "Just focus on things that are influenced by the planet."

So I did. So far I've done the inner senshi; once I find pictures of the outer senshi I'll do them, too, so I can hopefully clear up that "Saturn and Pluto should swap powers 'cause mythology!" nonsense. ^-^

They'll follow, 'cause they look pretty with their own post.

The Planet: Mercury is the smallest planet in our Solar System and is closest to the sun; this closeness causes its orbital period (or its year) to be very short – it’s the fastest planet in the solar system. It’s a terrestrial planet (made of rock) and is extremely hot, being surpassed in its daily temperatures only by Venus. It’s pockmarked by a lot of craters on its surface caused by collisions with meteors; the most notable of which is called the Caloris Basin. The impact that caused the Caloris Basin was so powerful that it caused lava eruptions and left a concentric ring over 2 km tall surrounding the impact crater, and the shockwaves of the impact travelled around the planet and converged exactly on the other side of the planet to create a large region of hilly terrain. Mercury’s orbit is the most eccentric of all of the planets (it’s the least like a true circle), and isn’t in the same plane as the other planets in the system; its orbit is inclined by 7 degrees. It takes 88 days to make one orbit around the sun; about 59 days to rotate once on its axis, and when you combine the two, one solar day on Mercury (sun up to sun up) actually takes 176 days. So, for every 3 days on Mercury, they’ve actually gone through 2 Mercury years!

Western Astrology: Mercury is the ruling planet of Gemini and Virgo, and is exalted in Virgo. It represents the principles of communication, mentality, thinking patters, rationality and reasoning and adaptability and variability. Mercury governs schooling and education, the immediate environment of neighbors, siblings and cousins, transport over short distances, messages and forms of communication such as post, email and telephone, newspapers, journalism and writing, information gathering skills and physical dexterity. It has been described as an inconstant, vivacious and curious planet.

In medicine, Mercury is associated with the nervous system, the brain, the respiratory system, the thyroid and the sense organs. It is traditionally held to be essentially cold and dry, according to its placement in the zodiac and in any aspects to other planets. It is linked to the animal spirits.

It is an opportunistic planet, decidedly unemotional and curious. Mercury rules over Wednesday (and in Romance languages, the word for Wednesday is often similar to Mercury (as is the case in Japanese, as well)). In Indian astrology, Mercury is called Budha, a word related to intelligence and represents communication.

Western Mythology: In Roman mythology, Mercury is the messenger of the gods, noted for his speed and swiftness, and is a god of trade, thieves and travel. His name is related to the Latin word for merchandise, trade, and wages, and most of his characteristics and mythology were borrowed from the analogous Greek God Hermes.

In Greek mythology, Hermes was the second youngest of the Olympian gods, born of Zeus and the Pleiade, Maia. His symbols include the rooster and the tortoise*, his purse or pouch, winged sandals, winged cap, and held in his left hand, the herald’s staff, the Greek kerykeion or Latin caduceus. He was the herald, or messenger, of the gods to humans. A patron of boundaries and the travelers who cross them, he was the protector of shepherds and cowherds, thieves, orators and wit, literature and poets, athletics and sports, weights and measures, invention and of commerce in general. He was a god of language, a patron of speakers, and was believed to have invented fire, the lyre* (or harp), the syrinx, the alphabet, numbers, astronomy, and various other things. He also served as an escort for the dead to help them find their way to the Underworld, and was the only god besides Hades, Persephone, Hecate and Thanatos who could enter and leave the Underworld without hindrance.

The caduceus that Hermes carries is often mistakenly used as a symbol of medicine and/or medical practice as it looks similar to the rod of Asclepius.

Eastern Mythology/Astrology: In Japan, Mercury is called “Suisei” or “Water-star”. The planet Suisei was associated with the North, with winter, with the cold, with water and ice, and the color black. The planetary animal for Suisei was the black tortoise*.

Sailor Mercury is extremely intelligent, a quick thinker, and technologically savvy (good with communication devices), tying in Mercury in western astrology and western mythology. Her attacks are water-based, reflecting Eastern Mythology, but one of her attacks tie both Western and Eastern mythology together beautifully.

Mercury Aqua Rhapsody is an attack wherein Sailor Mercury summons a harp, or lyre, and plays it to summon an attack in the form of strong freezing waves of water. The harp is the key here – the first harp was said to be made by Mercury, and in the mythology of Lyre we find that Mercury actually made the lyre from the shell of the largest turtle that he could find. With the turtle as the animal representation of Mercury in Eastern mythology, and the lyre being a creation of the god Mercury from Western mythology, Mercury Aqua Rhapsody is an excellent representation of the melding between these mythologies.

The Planet: Venus is a terrestrial (rocky) planet and is the planet second-closest to the sun. It is considered Earth’s sister planet because its composition and size, thus gravity, is nearly comparable to Earth’s; however, its sulfur-rich atmosphere of greenhouse gases creates a thick cloud cover that prevents heat from exiting, leading it to be the hottest planet in our Solar System, and the brightest, as its clouds are incredibly reflective. In fact, Venus is the second brightest object in the night sky, second only to the moon, and can cast shadows. Though we cannot visually see the surface of Venus, recent developments in planetary mapping technology have allowed us to map its volcanic surface; over 80% of the Venusian surface is covered by smooth volcanic plains. There are two highland ‘continents’ that make up the rest of the surface area, one in the northern hemisphere and the other just south of the equator. There are relatively few impact craters on the surface, demonstrating that the surface is relatively young (what happens is that any crater that is formed is filled in with magma. J a volcanic planet is an active planet, and an active planet covers craters relatively quickly). Some interesting features on Venus are the farra, which are large, flat-topped volcanic features that resemble giant pancakes, and the novae, which are radial, star-like frature systems, to name a few. All major features on the planet Venus are named after women.

Venus has always been watched, being a prominent feature in the night sky for its brilliance and beauty, often called the Morning or Evening Star, as it is only visible around sunrise and sunset because it is an inferior planet (or one that is between Earth and the sun). With telescopes, you can see Venus go through phases throughout its year, the most famous being its crescent phase observed by Galileo. Venus’s orbit takes 225 days, and its orbit is the least eccentric in the Solar System (it’s less than 0.01 percent away from being a perfect circle). A quirky feature of Venus is that it rotates clockwise, while all other planets in the Solar system (and the sun!) spin counter-clockwise – it has been suggested that Venus had collided with another object which made the planet flip over, so it’s actually on its head right now. This motion is called retrograde motion, and because of this motion combined with its normal counter-clockwise motion around the sun, a Venusian day lasts longer than a Venusian year (243 days); thus a Venusian year is only about 1.92 Venusian days long.

To an observer on Venus, the sun would appear to rise in the west and set in the east, and the time from one sunrise to the next would be 116.75 Earth days.

Western Astrology: Venus is the ruling planet of Taurus and Libra. It is associated with the principles of harmony, beauty, balance, feelings and affections and the urge to sympathize and unite with others. IT is involved with the desire for pleasure, comfort and ease. It governs romantic relations, marriage and business partnerships, sex, the arts, fashion and social life.

In medicine, Venus is associated with the lumbar region, the veins, the parathyroids, throat and kidneys. Venus is the ruler of the second and seventh houses. Venus is the planet of Friday, and in Romance languages, the word for Friday often resembles Venus. In Eastern mythology, Venus is associated with the element metal, which is unyielding, strong and persistent. In Indian astrology, Venus is known as Shukra and represents wealth, pleasure, and reproduction. In Norse Paganism, the planet is associated with Freyha, the goddess of love, beauty and fertility.

Western Mythology: In Roman mythology, Venus is the goddess of love and beauty, famous for the passion she could stir among the gods. She is associated with love, beauty, sex, fertility, prosperity and military victory. She is equivalent with the Greek goddess Aphrodite, who is the equivalent of the Phoenician goddess Astarte.

In Greek mythology, Aphrodite is the goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation. She was born when Cronus cut off Uranus’s genitals and threw them into the sea, and from the sea foam (aphros) arose Aphrodite, thus she is of an older generation than Zeus. Because of her beauty, other gods feared that jealousy would interrupt the peace among them and lead to war, and so Zeus married her to Hephaestus, who was not viewed as a threat. She had many lovers, including the god Ares, and was mentioned and played a key part in legends as both lover and mother. Myrtles, doves, sparrows, horses and swans are sacred to her.

By the late 5th century BC, philosohers separated the idea of Aphrodite into two separate goddesses: Aphrodite Ourania (‘of the sky’, born from the sea foam as mentioned above) and Aphrodite Pandemos (‘of the people’, born of Zeus and Dione). Aphrodite Ourania figures as the celestial Aphrodite, representing the love of body and soul, while Aphrodite Pandemos is associated with mere physical love.

Eastern Mythology/Astrology: In Japan, Venus is called “Kinsei” or “metal star”. It is associated with the color white, with Autumn, wind, and metal, especially gold. Kinsei’s planetary animal was the white tiger (Artemis?).

Sailor Venus is arguably the most social of the senshi, is passionate, and filled with love (platonic and romantic), tying nicely into both western astrology and western mythology. Her attacks are usually energy based or metal-based, but most are gold in color and based on the principle of love, tying both eastern and western mythology together beautifully. The best example of this merger would be her Venus Love-Me Chain, wherein she uses her heart-shaped golden/metallic chain to hit or grab an enemy.

The Planet: Mars is a terrestrial planet and is the fourth planet from the sun, the last of the inner planets. It gets its characteristic red coloration from the amount of iron oxide (or rust) on its surface, a color that our blood shares due to its iron content that provoked naming this planet after the god of war. Mars has a thin atmosphere and has surface features reminiscent of both the impact craters of the Moon and the volcanoes, valleys, deserts and polar ice caps of Earth. Its rotational period of 24.6 hours, it orbits the sun in a period of 687 days (or 1.88 Earth years) and the tilt of its axis produces seasons; despite its size being only a quarter of Earth’s, it is the most like Earth in the length of days and its tilt. Mars is the sight of Olympus Mons, the highest known mountain within the Solar System, and of Valles Marineris, the largest canyon. The smooth Borealis basin in the northern hemisphere covers 40% of the planet and may be a giant impact feature.

Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are small and irregularly shaped. They might be captured asteroids and is currently host to three functional orbiting spacecraft and two functional rovers, along with several inert landers and rovers.

Western Astrology: Mars is the ruling planet of Aries and is associated with confidence and self-assertion, aggression, sexuality, energy, strength, ambition and impulsiveness. Mars governs sports, competitions and physics activities in general. In medicine, Mars preside over the genitals, the muscular system, the gonads and adrenal glands. It was traditionally held to be hot and excessively dry and ruled the choleric humor. It was associated with fever, accidents, trauma, pain and surgery. In modern astrology, Mars is said to rule the first and eighth houses. While Venus tends to the overall relationship atmosphere, Mars is the passionate impulse and action, the masculine aspect, discipline, will-power and stamina.

Mars is associated with Tuesday and in the Romanic languages the word for Tuesday often resembles Mars. It is also associated with the liberal art of arithmetic. In Eastern astrology, Mars is ruled by the element fire, which is passionate, energetic and adventurous. In Indian astrology, Mars is called Mangala and represents energy, confidence and ego.

Western Mythology: In Roman mythology, Mars is the god of war and also an agricultural guardian. He was second in importance only to Jupiter, and was the most prominent of the military gods worshiped by the Roman legions. His festivals were held in Mars, the month named for him (Latin: Martius), and in October, which began and ended the season for military campaigning and farming. Mars was identified with the Greek god Ares, but the character and dignity of Mars differed in fundamental ways from that of his Greek counterpart, who is often treated with contempt and revulsion in Greek literature. Although Ares was viewed primarily as a destructive and destabilizing force, Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace and was the father of the Roman people by being the father of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. His love affair with Venus symbolically reconciled the two different traditions of Rome’s founding; Venus was the diving mother of the hero Aeneas, celebrated as the Trojan refugee who “founded” Rome several generations before Romulus laid out the city walls.

In Greek mythology, Ares was the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent aspect of war, in contrast to the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and generalship. The Greeks were ambivalent towards Ares: although he embodied the physical valor necessary for success in war, he was a dangerous force, “overwhelming, insatiable in battle, destructive and man-slaughtering.” Fear (Phobos) and Terror (Deimos) were toked to his battle chariot. In the Iliad his father Zeus tells him that he is the god most hateful to him. An association with Ares endows places and objects with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality. His value as a war god is even placed in doubt: during the Trojan War, Ares was on the losing side, while Athena, often depicted holding Nike (victory) in her hand, favored the triumphant Greeks.

Ares plays a relatively limited role in Greek mythology as represented in literary narritives, though his numerous love affairs and abundant offspring are often alluded to. When he does appear in myths, he typically faces humiliation. He is the well-known lover of Aphrodite, the goddess of love who was married to Hephaestus, god of craftsmanship, but the most famous story involving the couple shows them exposed to ridicule through the wronged husband’s clever device.

Eastern Mythology/Astrology: In Japan, Mars is called “Kasei” or “Fire-star”. The planet Kasei is associated with the color red, summer and fire. Kasei’s planetary animal was the red bird.

Sailor Mars is passionate, confident, and assertive, tying in nicely with the western astrology and mythology. Her attacks are fire based, reflecting eastern mythology, and offensive, which would hint at western mythology, too. Her crows, Phobos and Deimos, call back to both western and eastern mythologies as they are birds and are named after the pullers of Mars’s chariot. Mar’s final attack, Mars Flame Sniper, marries both mythologies together nicely in that it is fire-based but uses a weapon of war, while her anime-only attack, Fire Bird, is strictly influenced by eastern mythology.

The Planet: Jupiter is a Jovian planet (or gas giant) and is the largest planet in the Solar System – in fact, it is two and a half times the mass of all the other planet in our Solar System combined. In the night sky, Jupiter is the third brightest object, behind the Moon and Venus (while Mars can match its brightness only during certain points in its orbit). Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen, with a quarter of its mass being helium; it may have a rocky core of heavier elements, but we are unable to detect one. Because of its rapid rotation and composition, Jupiter is an oblate spheroid (aka, sphere with smooshed poles) and the planet’s rotation is differential – its equatorial region takes less time to go around (9 hours 50 minutes) than its polar regions (9 hours 55 minutes). It’s orbital period is about 12 years. Its outer atmosphere is composed of several bands at different latitudes going different directions (called belts and zones); turbulence occurs at their boundaries, resulting in storms. A prominent storm is the Great Red Spot, which has existed for at least 400 years. Jupiter has an extremely strong magnetosphere, which results in bright aurorae around the planet’s poles. Surrounding the planet is a faint planetary ring and at least 66 moons, four of which, the closest, are larger and can be seen with a telescope – the Galilean Moons. One such moon, Ganymede, is larger than Mercury.

A hobby some radioastronomers have is capturing and listening to the radio waves emitted by the storms of Jupiter (and Saturn), and a future target for exploration is the Galilean moon Europa and its possible ice-covered liquid ocean.

One very important aspect about Jupiter is its immense gravitational pull – it is said that Jupiter’s nearness to the Asteroid Belt is what prevents the debris that makes up the Asteroid Belt from forming into a planet. Its gravity also turns Jupiter into a watchdog for the inner solar system; should any foreign object, such as a comet or other potentially-harmful space debris, come towards the inner solar system, it is often caught by Jupiter’s gravitational pull and crashes into the planet itself, saving the inner solar system, namely Earth, from potentially dangerous situations.

Western Astrology: Jupiter is the ruling planet of Sagittarius, and is associated with the principles of growth, expansion, prosperity, and good fortune. Jupiter governs long distance and foreign travel, higher education, religion and the law. It is also associated with the urge for freedom and exploration, humanitarian and protecting roles, and with gambling and merrymaking. It was regarded as warm and moist in nature, and therefore favorable to life.

In medicine, Jupiter is associated with the liver, pituitary gland, and the disposition of fats; it governed the sanguine humor. It is said to be the ruler of the ninth and twelfth houses. Jupiter is associated with Thursday, and in Romance languages, the name for Thursday often comes from Jupiter. In Eastern astrology, Jupiter is ruled by the element wood, which is patient, hard-working, and reliable. In Indian astrology, Jupiter is known as Guru and is known as the ‘great teacher’.

Western Mythology: In Roman mythology, Jupiter (or Jove) is the king of the gods and the god of sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon. He may have originated as a sky-god, associated primarily with wine festivals and the sacred oak on the capitol. As the sky-god, he was the first resort as a divine witness to oaths. His primary sacred animal is the eagle. In the Greek-influence tradition, Jupiter was the brother of Neptune and Pluto. Each presided over one of the three realms of the universe: sky, sea, and the underworld. Jupiter remained Rome’s chief official deity throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until displaced by the religious hegemony of Christianity.

In Greek mythology, Zeus was the “Father of Gods and men” who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder, and was the child of Cronus and Rhea, and the youngest of his siblings. In most traditions he was married to Hera, and is known for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo and Artemis, Hermes, Persephone (by Demeter), Dionysus, Perseus, Hercules, Helen of Troy, Minos and the Muses (by Mnemnosyne). By Hera, he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe and Hephaestus. Though all may not be biological, all of the gods on Olympus addressed him as Father, and all gods rise in his presence. He was the King of the Gods, who oversaw the universe. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak.

Eastern Mythology/Astrology: In Japan, Jupiter is known as “Mokusei” or “Wood-star”, and is associated with the color green or blue, with spring, and with trees and wood. Its planetary animal was the Green/Blue Dragon.

Sailor Jupiter is hard-working, reliable, and patient with strong protective instincts, which makes her a perfect candidate to represent Jupiter astrologically. Her anime tendencies towards chasing men might translate to Zeu’s “erotic escapades”, while her motherly attitude towards the other senshi, especially Bunny, could also lend itself to Zeus’s mythology. While Jupiter’s early powers tended towards the western mythological realm with lightning and thunder, one could still say that it was within the arena of ‘nature,’ which could apply to the wood aspect of eastern mythology.

The attacks that blends both perfectly, however, are her later attacks: Jupiter Coconut Cyclone, Jupiter Flower Hurricane, and Jupiter Oak Evolution. Jupiter Oak Evolution, in particular, marries the two wonderfully; oak being a tree and one of the symbols of Zeus, and the attack involving both greenery and electricity.

I just read all of this. AMAZED! I wanted to keep reading about the other senshi. I know NOTHING about mythology or astronomy. This certainly made me curious about all the mythology stories. Why is it that one doesn't pay attention to these sorts of things while they're being taught at school. I used to tune out my teacher. Now I regret it

The Planet: Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system, the sixth planet from the Sun, and the possessor of the most spectacular ring system in our Solar system. Saturn is a Jovian planet, or a gas giant, with an average radius about nine times that of Earth, yet only 1/8 the average density of Earth; with its larger volume Saturn is just over 95 times more massive than Earth and has the unique characteristic of having a density less than water. This means that Saturn could float on water (if there were a source big enough!).

Saturn’s ring system consists of nine continuous main rings and three discontinuous arcs, composed mostly of water-ice particles (which makes it very reflective and noticeable) and a smaller amount of rocky debris and dust. This ring system is now thought to be caused by the spaghettification and decimation of one of Saturn’s now-dead moons ((if you would like to hear more about that, send me a message!)). Sixty-two known moons orbit the planet; fifty-three are officially named. This does not include the hundreds of ‘moonlets’ within the rings. Titan, Saturn’s largest and the Solar System’s second largest moon, is larger than the planet Mercury and is the only moon in the Solar System to retain a substantial atmosphere.

Saturn is often given the nickname of “The Jewel of the Solar System.”

Western Astrology: Saturn is the ruling planet of Capricorn. Astrologically, Saturn is associated with the principles of limitation, restrictions, boundaries, practicality and reality, crystallizing, and structures. Saturn governs ambition, career, authority and hierarchy, and conforming social structures. It concerns a person’s sense of duty, discipline and responsibility, and their physical and emotional endurance during hardships. Saturn is also considered to represent the part of a person concerned with long-term planning. The Return of Saturn is said to mark significant events in each person’s life. According to the 1st century poet Manilius, Saturn is sad, morose, and cold, and is the greater malefic.

According to Claudius Ptolemy, “Saturn is lord of the right ear, the spleen, the bladder, the phlegm, and the bones.” Saturn symbolized processes and things that were dry and cold, and therefore inimical to life. It governed the melancholic humor.

Saturn is associated with Saturday, which was named after the deity Saturn. Dante Alighieri associated Saturn with the liberal art of astronomia (astrology and astronomy). In Chinese astrology, Saturn is ruled by the element earth, which is warm, generous, and cooperative. In Indian astrology, Saturn is called Shani and represents career and longevity. It is also the bringer of bad luck and hardship.

Western Mythology: In ancient Roman mythology, Saturn was a major god presiding over agriculture and the harvest time. In medieval times he was known as the Roman god of agriculture, justice and strength. He held a sickle in his left hand and a bundle of wheat in his right. His mother was Terra and his father was Caelus. Saturn’s wife was Ops (Greek: Rhea) and Saturn was the father of Ceres, Jupiter, Veritas, Pluto, Neptune and Juno, among others.

He was identified in classical antiquity with the Greek deity Cronus, and the mythology of the two gods are commonly mixed. In Hesiod’s Theogony, a mythological account of the creation of the universe and Zeus’ rise to power, Cronus is mentioned as the son of Uranus, the heavens, and Gaia, the earth. Cronus seizes power, castrating and overthrowing his father Uranus. However, it was foretold that one day a mighty son of Cronus would in turn overthrow him, and Cronus devoured all of his children when they were born to prevent this. Cronus’s wife, Rhea, hid her sixth child, Zeus, on the island of Crete, and offered Cronus a large stone wrapped in swaddling clothes in his place. Zeus later overthrew Cronus and the other Titans, becoming the new supreme ruler of the cosmos.

In the Roman tradition, in memory of the Golden Age of man, a mythical age when Saturn was said to have ruled, a great feast called Saturnalia was held during the winter months around the time of the winter solstice. It was originally only one day long, taking place on December 17, but later lasted one week. During Saturnalia, roles of mater and slave were reversed, moral restrictions loosened, and the rules of etiquette ignored.

In Greek mythology, Cronus (or Kronos) was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titans, as said above. The age wherein Cronus ruled the earth was called the Golden Age.

His association with the “Saturnian” Golden Age eventually caused him to become the god of “time”, i.e., calendars, seasons, and harvests – not to be confused with Chronos, the unrelated embodiment of time in general; nevertheless, among Hellenistic scholars in Alexandria and during the Renassance, Cronus was conflated with the name of Chronos, the personification of “Father Time”, weidling the harvesting scythe.

Eastern Mythology: In Japan, Saturn is called “Dosei” or “Earth/Soil Star”. The planet Dosei was associated with the element Earth (as in dirt, not the entire planet), and thus with farming (burying a seed and letting it grow) as well as graves (burying a body and allowing the soul to be reborn). The crystal brooch of Sailor Saturn might represent the idea of Life in Death.

Sailor Saturn starts out as a lonely girl with many limitations thrust upon her by her circumstances (her health, primarily; secondarily would be the stigma of her father being who he was, and the whole ‘secret cyborg’ deal), which makes her connection with the western astrology pretty tight, while her being locked away could be comparable to how Zeus had all the titans imprisoned in Tartarus. Her powers over death and rebirth tie in both Eastern and Western mythologies in that both revolve around agriculture and the seasons. You need death in order for life to continue.

Saturn’s attack, Death Reborn Revolution, harmonizes Eastern and Western Saturn symbology via her use of Cronus’s glaive and the use of the dual nature of death. Once Hotaru is reborn, we see other bits of the Saturn astrology in that she is dutiful, responsible, and can take on hardship like no other.

In the last of the Western Mythology section above, you can easily see why some confuse Cronus and Chronos, thus the duties of Saturn and Pluto, while each are inherently different; Naoko knew what she was doing.

The Planet: Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun, and has the third-largest planetary radius (it’s the third biggest) and the fourth-largest planetary mass (but has the fourth highest mass; Neptune is heavier than Uranus). Though Uranus is semi-visible to the naked eye like the five classical planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), it was never recognized as a planet by ancient observers because of its dimness and slow orbit. It was officially discovered in 1781 by Sir William Herschel, and its discovery expanded the known boundaries of the Solar System for the first time in modern history. It is also the first planet discovered with a telescope.

Uranus is similar to Neptune in composition; they are both Jovian planets, or gas giants, but they are of different chemical composition than Jupiter and Saturn. Sometimes the two blue planets are placed in a separate category called “ice giants” due to their composition containment of more ices, like water ice, ammonia, and methane ice. Uranus has the coldest planetary atmosphere in the Solar System, and has a complex, layered cloud structure with water thought to make up the lowest clouds. The interior of Uranus is mainly composed of ice and rock.
Like the other gas planets, Uranus has a ring system, a magnetosphere, and numerous moons, but the Uranian system is unique in that its axis of rotation is tilted sideways, nearly into the plane of its revolution about the Sun – its north pole and south pole are where other planet’s equators are, so that it appears to spin on its side.

Uranus revolves around the Sun about once every 84 Earth years, and is roughly 20 times as far from the sun as Earth is. Through the study of Uranus’s expected orbit and its actual orbit, the planet Neptune was theorized and then discovered by astronomers in 1846.

Western Astrology: For some modern Western Astrologers, the planet Uranus is the ruling planet of Aquarius. Astrologically modern interpretations associate Uranus with the principles of genius, individuality, new and unconventional ideas, discoveries, electricity, inventions, and the beginnings of the industrial revolution. Uranus governs societies, clubs, and any group dedicated to humanitarian or progressive ideals. Uranus, the planet of sudden and unexpected changes, rules freedom and originality. In society, it rules radical ideas and people, as well as revolutionary events that upset established structures.

In medicine, Uranus is believed to be particularly associated with sympathetic nervous system, mental disorders, breakdowns and hysteria, spasms and cramps.


Western Mythology: Uranus was the primal Greek god personifying the sky. His equivalent in Roman mythology was Caelus. In Ancient Greek literature, Uranus or Father Sky was the son and husband of Gaia, Mother Earth. According to Hesiod’s Theogony, Uranus was conceived by Gaia alone, but other sources cite Aether as his father. Uranus and Gaia were the parents of the first generation of Titans, and the ancestors of most of the Greek gods. He came every night to cover the earth and mate with Gaia, and hated the children she bore him. His first six sons and first six daughters were called the Titans, but they also had three one-hundred-armed giants the Hekatonkheires, and the one-eyed giants, the Cyclopses.

Uranus imprisoned Gaia’s youngest children in Tartarus, deep within Earth, where they caused pain to Gaia. She sharpened a great flint-bladed sickle and asked her sons to castrate Uranus, but only Cronus, youngest and most ambitious of the Titans, was willing. He ambushed his father and castrated him, casting the severed testicles into the sea. From those genitals in the sea sprung forth Aphrodite.

Eastern Mythology: In Japan, the planet Uranus, invisible to the naked eye, was named after it’s roman counterpart. As Uranus is the god of the sky in roman mythology, they named the planet “Tenohsei”, a literal translation of “Sky Star”.

Sailor Uranus fits the western astrology nicely in that, in several ways, she embodies individuality and new and unconventional ideas in her manner of dressing however she wants, be the look generally feminine or masculine. Her love of speed could be attributed to the idea of Uranus ruling over the ideas of freedom, as well as sudden and unexpected changes, and it ties in the sky in that what she craves to be like is the wind. As Eastern Mythology modeled the planet’s name after Western mythology, Sailor Uranus’s attacks all stem from the Sky and Wind.

The Planet: Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun. It is a Jovian planet, or gas giant, and is the fourth-largest planet in diameter and the third largest by mass (While it is physically smaller than Uranus, it is still heavier). On average, Neptune orbits the Sun roughly 30 times farther away from the Sun than Earth does. Neptune was the first planet found by mathematical prediction rather than observation; unexpected changes in Uranus’s orbit were thought to be caused by gravitational interactions due to another outlying planet, and soon after they used those calculations to figure out where it would be in the sky, and used a telescope to actually see it. Its moon Triton was observed in the telescope not long after, but none of its other 12 moons were located telescopically until the 20th century.

Neptune is most similar in composition to Uranus, but it shares similar outer atmospheric characteristics with Jupiter and Saturn, but with ices thrown in. Astronomers sometimes categorize Uranus and Neptune as “ice giants” in order to emphasize these distinctions. The interior of Neptune, like Uranus, is primarily composed of ices and rock. Traces of methane in the outermost regions account for the planet’s blue appearance.

In contrast to the relatively featureless atmosphere of Uranus, Neptune’s atmosphere is notable for its active and visible weather patterns. For example, for a long time Neptune’s southern hemisphere possessed a Great Dark Spot comparable to the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. The weather patterns on Neptune are driven by the strongest sustained wings of any planet in the Solar System, with recorded wind speeds as high as 2100 km/h. Because of its distance from the sun, Neptune’s outer atmosphere is second coldest in the Solar System, with Uranus’s atmosphere being the only one colder.

Neptune has a faint and fragmented ring system.

Western Astrology: For many astrologers, Neptune is the ruling planet of Pisces. Astrologically, modern Western astrologers associate the planet Neptune with idealism and compassion, but also with illusion, confusion, and deception. Neptune governs hospitals, prisons, mental institutions and any other place, such as a monastery, that involves a retreat from society.

In medicine, Neptune is seen to be particularly associated with the thalamus, the spinal canal, and severe or mysterious illnesses and neuroses.

Western Mythology: Neptune was the Roman god of water and the sea. He is the counterpart of the Greek god Poseidon. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Neptune was the brother of Jupiter and Pluto. Unlike the Greek Oceanus, titan of the world-ocean, Neptune was associated as well with fresh water. Like Poseidon, Neptune was worshipped by the Romans also as a god of horses.

In Greek mythology, Poseidon was a son of Cronus and Rhea. In most accounts he is swallowed by Cronus at birth but later saved, with his other brothers and sisters, by Zeus. However, in some versions of the story, he, like his brother Zeus, did not share the fate of his other brother and sisters and was also hidden somewhere by Rhea and Cronus was given a colt to eat instead.

Eastern Mythology: In Japan, the planet Neptune, invisible to the naked eye, was named after its roman counterpart. As Neptune is the god of the sea in roman mythology, they named the planet “Kaiohsei”, a literal translation of “Sea Star”.

Sailor Neptune‘s personality could be bent in the Neptune astrology mode – she is compassionate when she wishes to be, and is definitely good with illusion, confusion and deception, but I believe that Naoko wanted her personality to be more like the sea – dependable, flowing and changing, but always comforting and reliable. As the Eastern mythology plays off of the Western mythology, not much can be said to compare the two; Neptune keeps the characteristics of Western.

The (Dwarf) Planet: Pluto is the second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System (after Eris, which lies farther out), and is the tenth-most-massive body observed directly orbiting the Sun. While it was originally classified as the ninth planet, Pluto was recategorized as a dwarf planet and plutoid due to the discovery that it is one of several large bodies within the Kuiper Belt.

Pluto’s status as a planet had been in question since the discovery of minor planet Chiron in the late 1970’s, when its relatively low mass and the discovery of many objects similar to Pluto came into light. In 2005 with the discovery of Eris, a dwarf-planet named after the goddess of discord as a nod to the discord its discovery would cause in the astronomical community, the International Astronomical Union met to discuss the definition of what it means to be a “planet” within the Solar System. Under the new definitions, Pluto was excluded from planetary status and placed in a new category, called “dwarf planets” along with Eris and the asteroid Ceres. While some scientists hold that Pluto should continue to be classified as a planet and that other dwarf planets should be added to the roster of planets along with Pluto, the general consensus remains that the new definition will hold. This is completely acceptable because the alternative would be to have over 20 “planets” in the solar system, only eight of which would be unique.

Like other members of the Kuiper belt, Pluto is composed primarily of rock and ice and is relatively small, approximately 1/6th the mass of Earth’s Moon and a third its volume. It has an eccentric (squished oval) and highly inclined (not in the plane of the other planets of the Solar System) orbit that takes the dwarf-planet between 30 AU (30 times the distance from Earth to the sun; the distance of Neptune to the sun) to about 50 AU from the sun. This second distance would be like taking the distance between the sun and Uranus and adding it to the distance from the sun to Neptune.

Pluto has four known moons, the largest being Charon, along with Nix and Hydra. Pluto and Charon are sometimes described as a binary system because they actually orbit each other about a space that’s outside of one another; unlike the Earth-Moon system, where it solidly appears that the Moon orbits Earth and Earth is undisturbed by the Moon’s actions (besides the tides), Pluto orbits around Charon while Charon orbits around Pluto, creating a pretty crazy dance in space.

Western Astrology: To most Western astrologers, Pluto is the ruling planet of Scorpio. Astrologically, Pluto is called “the great renewer”, and is considered to represent the part of a person that destroys in order to renew, through bringing buried, but intense needs and drives to the surface, and expressing them, even at the expense of the existing order. A commonly used keyword for Pluto is “transformation”. It is associated with power and personal mastery, and the need to cooperate and share with another, if each is not to be destroyed. Pluto governs big business and wealth, mining, surgery and detective work, and any enterprise that involves digging under the surface to bring the truth to light.

Pluto is associated with extreme power and corruption due to the circumstances surrounding its discovery.
In medicine, Pluto is seen to be associated with regenerative forces in the body involving cell formation and the reproductive system.

Western Mythology: In ancient Greek religion and myth, Pluto was the name for the ruler of the underworld, but was also knows as Hades, a name for the underworld itself. He is the oldest male child of Cronus and Rhea, and he and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated the Titans and claimed rulership of the cosmos. He chose to rule the underworld, while Zeus chose the sky and Poseidon the sea; the earth, or dry land, was codominated as it belonged to their grandmother Gaia. Pluto abducted Persephone, goddess-figure of springtime and daughter of Demeter, to be his wife and the queen of his realm.

In many myths and legends, Hades, or the underworld, is often a place for quests. The Greek underworld is split into several different areas: Tartarus was an ancient deep, gloomy pit, an abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides beneath the underworld; Asphodel Meadows were expanses of greenery where indifferent and ordinary souls were sent to live after death; and Elysium is an idyllic afterlife reserved for the gods, those chosen by the gods, heroes and the righteous, where those chosen would live a blessed and happy life, indulging in whatever employment they had enjoyed in life. Sometimes Elysium is described as being a set of islands that have shady parks where the residents indulge in their athletic and musical pastimes.

Eastern Mythology: In Japan, the dwarf-planet Pluto, invisible to the naked eye, was named after its roman counterpart. As Pluto is the god of the the dead in roman mythology, they named the planet “Meiohsei”, a literal translation of “Dark King Star”.

Sailor Pluto is only somewhat like her astrological planetary description, but if you look at the description not as her personally, but by what she means to the senshi when they first meet her, and the actions that lead to the awakening of Chibi-Usa from Black Lady, the description could fit because in many ways, Pluto was the key to Small Lady’s transformation. Mythologically, Pluto’s ruling over the underworld is reflected in half of her attacks, such as Dead Scream, while the other half ties into her lineage as a descendant of Chronos, god of time.
To see a full explanation of why Sailor Pluto’s powers should not be swapped with Sailor Saturn’s, click here.

Just letting you know... I've had this page up as a tab on my browser for a few days so I can slowly read it all. xD

XD teehee, sorry it's a ton of information!

and i have Word tabs open at teh bottom fo my computer waiting for Moon and Sun information...

though filling out 'Sun' is taking longer than I thought because i can't find new cute artwork of Tuxedo Mask anywhere.

There's the one of him with his hat flying off. I think you can find the image on Mangastyle.net if you view the SailorMoonChannel section. I think. o.o;

Edit: Oh I found one! http://www.three-lights.net/vintage/images/prettyguardian/sticker9.jpg

o.o ooh... pretty site!

hmm... there's one of him in the splash page section, but Mercury's kinda blocking his cape and part of his body... (and there's a chibi that makes him look more like Tubby Mask...) :/

The Moon: The Moon is Earth’s natural satellite, and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. It is the largest natural satellite of a planet in the Solar System relative to the size of its primary (the planet it orbits), having a quarter of the diameter of Earth and 1/81st of its mass. The Moon is the second densest satellite after Io of Jupiter. It is in synchronous rotation with Earth, always showing the same face: the near side is marked with dark volcanic maria among the bright ancient crustal highlands and prominent impact craters. It is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun, although the surface is actually very dark, with a similar reflectance to coal. Its prominence in the sky and its regular cycle of phases have, since ancient times, made the Moon an important cultural influence on language, calendars, art, and mythology. The Moon’s gravitational influence produces the ocean tides and the minute lengthening of the day. The Moon’s current orbital distance, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth, causes it to appear almost the same size in the sky as the Sun, allowing it to cover the Sun nearly precisely in total solar eclipses.

The Moon is the only celestial body other than Earth on which humans have set foot. The missions to the Moon have returned over 380 kg of lunar rocks, which have been used to develop geological understanding of the Moon’s origins, the formation of its internal structure, and its subsequent history. It is thought to have formed some 4.5 billion years ago; one formation theory is a giant impact event involving Earth and a protoplanet named Rhea; however, the impact theory was called into question earlier this year (2012) after a re-analysis of Apollo samples.


Western Astrology: The Moon is the ruling planet of Cancer. Astrologically, the Moon is associated with a person’s emotional make-up, unconscious habits, rhythms, memories, moods, and their ability to react and adapt to those around them. It I also associated with the digestive system, stomach, breasts, the ovaries and menstruation (which occurs on a monthly basis, just as the moon revolves around the Earth in a month-long period) and the pancreas. The Moon is commonly associated with the phlegmatic humor; it ruled the animal spirits.

The Moon, or Luna, is associated with Monday (Moonday), and in Romance languages, the name for Monday comes from luna (e.g., Luni, Lundi, De lunes, lunedi)

In Chinese astrology, the Moon represents Yin, the passive and receptive feminine life principle. In Indiant astrology, the Moon is called Chandra and represents the mind, queenship and mother. The north lunar node and the south lunar node are considered to be of particular importance and are given equal place alongside the seven classical planets as part of the nine navagraha. Also unique to Indian astrology is the system of 27 (or 28) lunar stations or “mansions” called nakshatra, which are believed to be of major importance in indicating the life path of the individual.


Western Mythology: In Greek Mythology, Selene was an archaic lunar deity and the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia. In Roman mythology, the moon goddess is called Luna, Latin for “moon”. In post-Renaissance art, Selene is generally depicted as a beautiful woman with a pale face and long, lustrous, black hair; riding a silver chariot pulled by either a yoke of oxen, a pair of horses, or a pair of serpentine dragons. Often she has been shown riding a horse or bull, wearing robes with a moon on her head and carrying a torch.

In the traditional pre-Olympian divine genealogy, Helios, the sun, is Selene’s brother: after Helios finishes his journey across the sky, Selene, freshly washed in the waters of Earth-circling Oceanus, begins her own journey as night falls upon the earth, which becomes lit from the radiance of her immortal head and golden crown. It is a “sure token and a sign to mortal men.” Her sister, Eos, is the goddess of the dawn. Eos also carried off a human lover, Cephalus, which mirrors a myth of Selene and Endymion.

Apollonius of Rhodes refers to Selene, “daughter of Titan”, who “madly” loved a mortal, the handsome hunter or shepherd – or, in another version, a king – of Elis, named Endymion, from Asia Minor. In other Greek references to the myth, he was so handsome that Selene asked Zeus to grant him eternal sleep so that he would stay forever young and thus would never leave her: in others, she acted autonomously, not requesting anything of Zeus but doing it of her own accord. Another alternative is that Endymion made the decision to live forever in sleep. Every night, Selene slipped down behind Mount Latmus near Miletus to visit him.

Though the story of Endymion is the best-known one of today, the Homeric hymn to Selene tells that Selene also bore to Zeus a daughter, Pandia (“all bright”), goddess of the full moon. According to some sources, the Nemean Lion was her offspring as well; others say that she also had a brief tryst with Pan, and that he gave her the yoke of white oxen that drew the chariot in which she is represented in sculptured reliefs, with her windblown veil above her head like the arching canopy of sky. In Homeric hymn, her chariot is drawn by long-maned horses.

The Roman goddess, Luna, had a temple on the Aventine Hill that was destroyed in the Great Fire of Rome during Nero’s reign. There was also a temple dedicated to Luna Noctiluca (“Luna that shines by night”) on the Palantine Hill. There were festivals in honor of Luna on March 31, August 24 and August 29.

Note: I might someday do a quickie on Artemis/Diana, just ‘cause she’s so amazing, but the idea that Artemis was a goddess of the moon is actually incorrect.

Eastern Mythology: The Lunar Rabbit is an imaginary rabbit seen on the moon pounding mocha (flat patties of rice). This feature is often compared to the Western “man in the moon”; in face the idea of a rabbit in the moon had far more importance to ancient Asians. They regarded the rabbit as a life-giving goddess who produced rice on the earth. The Princess role is taken from a fairy tale known as the Bamboo Cutter.

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, also known as Princess Kaguya, is a 10th century Japanese folktale. It is considered the oldest extant Japanese narrative and an early example of proto-science fiction. Specifically, it is among the first texts of any culture assuming the Moon to be an inhabited world and describing travel between it and Earth.

It primarily details the life of a mysterious girl named Kaguya-hime, who was discovered as a baby inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant. She is said to be from Tsuki-no-Miyako (“The Capital of the Moon”) and has unusual hair that shines like the moon…

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter:

Sailor Moon ‘s story from the times of the Silver Millennium is definitely a marriage between the story of Selene and Endymion with details of the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, the ties between Endymion and the Emperor, and Selene and Kaguya turning to create the tragic love-story we all know. A quick overview of the astrology of the moon in comparison to Usagi would point to her strength of heart, the power of her emotions, and her ability to react and adapt to those around her and actually influence others because of those characteristics, all showing a strong command of the traits. Her attacks usually stem from some sort of light and energy, which fits in with Selene and the glowing bamboo that Kaguya sprang from.

In Sailor Moon, Tau Ceti is the place of origin for Pharaoh 90 and the Death Busters. While sometimes called ‘Tau Nebula’ or just ‘Tau Star System’, the eventual revelation that Mistress 9 and Pharaoh 90 come from “Tau Ceti Star System” gives it a solid link to an astronomical entity – that is, the ‘tau’ star in the Ceti constellation.

There are many ‘Tau’ stars all over the night sky. You see, when naming stars, usually only the brightest, biggest, most noticeable and/or important stars are given specific names, such as “Polaris,” “Sirius,” and “Betelgeuse;” the stars that appear ordinary are usually catalogued by the constellation they appear in/around and then ranked, in order of brightness, through the Greek Alphabet. Therefore, Tau Ceti would be in the constellation Cetus (Ceti is kinda like a possessive form of the word), and would be the 19th brightest star in the constellation.


Cetus, just so you know, is the sea monster in Greek Mythology that was slain by Perseus before it could eat Andromeda. Though the constellation is referred to as simply “the whale” today, Cetus was described as any sort of large fish, such as a whale, shark or sea monster. In the myth, Andromeda’s vain mother, Queen Cassiopeia, bragged that her daughter was more beautiful than any sea nymph, which angered the god of the sea, Poseidon(he was the father of the nymphs). Poseidon sent Cetus to destroy Ethiopia(their kingdom), and the only way to stop the monster was to offer Andromeda as a sacrifice to it. So Cassiopeia and her husband tied Andromeda to the rocks for Cetus to find and eat. At about that time, Perseus, flying on Pegasus, was returning from killing Medusa, saw the beautiful Andromeda and swooped in to save her, using Medusa’s head to turn Cetus to stone, and then escaped with the Princess. Today the whole cast and crew are in the havens, and Cetus is close by.

Now, Tau Ceti was probably chosen by Naoko-hime because it is incredibly similar to our Sun. While it is only 78% of the Sun’s mass, its makeup is nearly the same and it is relatively nearby (only 12 light-years away. … how long was it between Hotaru’s mom’s death and the awakening of Mistress 9? Was it twelve years? … cause that’d be awesome just sayin’). Tau Ceti is a metal-deficient star so it is thought to be less likely to hold rocky planets, and observations have detected more than ten times as much dust surrounding Tau Ceti as is present in the Solar System. Due to this high amount of dust and debris, any planet circling Tau Ceti would face far more impact events than Earth. Because of its similarity to the Sun, Tau Ceti has been consistently listed as a target for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and has appeared in some science fiction literature.


((As seen from Tau Ceti, the Sun would be about the same brightness as it is to us, but located in the constellation Bootes.))

In Sailor Moon, Nemesis was “…the tenth planet of the solar system. Its orbit cannot be calculated. Its very existence could not be ascertained for ages. It is a phantom planet of darkness.”- King Endymion, Volume 4 (reprint) And, later, from the mouth of Saphir (volume 5, reprint), “My brothers don’t understand just how dangerous an unstable, still-maturing planet can be. […] Even though we don’t understand how it works, we’ve forcibly accelerated this planet’s fusion reaction in order to use its energy.” And, further, we then see Nemesis now closer to Earth as Wiseman tries to take over. So, first we’ll discuss the Nemesis postulated in 1984 and the bit of history behind that, then a little bit about travelling planets.((too long, lmao))


Nemesis is a hypothetical hard-to-detect red dwarf star (or “brown dwarf”), originally postulated in 1984 to be orbiting the Sun at a distance of 1.5 light-years, somewhat beyond the Oort cloud, to explain a perceived cycle of mass exinctions in the geological record, which seem to occur more often at intervals of 26 million years. While evidence for and against Nemesis seemed to build as we understood the fossil record in greater detail, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite failed to discover Nemesis in the 1980’s, and the 2MASS astronomical survey (1997-2001) failed to detect a star, or brown dwarf, in the solar system.


A brown dwarf is a sub-stellar object – aka something that doesn’t have the mass required to sustain hydrogen fusion in its core, thus is not technically a star. So while it is a spherical gathering of hot gas and dust, it doesn’t give off much light or heat. Brown Dwarfs have a mass ranging between that of large gas giant planets (at one time, some scientists hypothesized that Jupiter was a brown dwarf; this claim was refuted) to the lowest-mass stars – between 13 times the mass of Jupiter to around 75 – 80 times the mass of Jupiter. Some dwarf planets have been discovered to have planets orbiting them.



The birth of the Nemesis idea, as stated earlier, was born from two things: mass extinction records and disturbed orbits of trans-Neptunian objects (stuff beyond Neptune). In 1984, two paleontologists (Raup and Sepkoski) published a paper claiming that they found a statistical periodicity in extinction rates over the last 250 million years, and that periodicity was every 26 million years. At the time, two of the identified extinction events (Cretaceous-Paleogene and Late Eocene) could be shown to coincide with large impact events. While the two paleontologists could not identify the cause of their supposed periodicity, they suggested a possible non-terrestrial connection, and several astronomers took up the challenge to propose a mechanism to explain the events. ((side note: In 2010, Melott and Bambach re-examined the fossil data including new and improved dating and a database the first two didn’t use, running back now over 500 million years, and found that the periodicity of mass extinctions is really around 27 million years.))


Two teams of astronomers independently published similar hypotheses to explain Raup and Sepkoski’s extinction periodicity in the same issue of a scientific journal (Nature). Their hypothesis was that the Sun may have an undetected companion star in a highly elliptical orbit that periodically disturbs comets in the Oort cloud, causing a large increase in the number of comets visiting the inner Solar System, which would increase the number of impact events on Earth. This became known as the “Nemesis” or “Death Star” hypothesis. If it does exist, the exact nature of Nemesis is uncertain, but some have suggested it to be a red or brown dwarf. One of the scientists who proposed Nemesis (Muller) was able to give a general location for the red dwarf based on atypical long-period comets; his most recent paper (2002), Muller speculated that Nemesis was perturbed nearly 400 million years ago by a passing star from a circular orbit into an eccentric (or squished) one.


Further reason to question the existence of Nemesis lies in the dwarf-planet Sedna and its incredible orbit, which ranges between 76 AU at its nearest passing to the sun, to 975 AU. This orbit has been estimated to last between 10.5 and 12 thousand years. Michael Brown, its discoverer, noted that Sedna’s location seemed to defy reasoning – “Sedna shouldn’t be there. There’s no way to put Sedna where it is. It never comes close enough to be affected by the Sun, but it never goes far enough away from the Sun to be affected by other stars,” said Brown; he therefore postulated that a massive unseen object may be responsible for Sedna’s strange orbit. Recently, however, he has stated that it is more likely that one or more non-companion stars that passed by the Sun billions of years ago, could have pulled Sedna into its current orbit; in 2004, another astronomer forwarded this explanation with analysis of Sedna’s orbital data and computer modeling of possible ancient non-companion star passes.

...and someone had to revive this 3 years later.  (fascinated) I have an interest in astrology and its sister science astronomy, although astronomy has more a scientific rational basis and my healthy level of skepticism in astrology. Obviously, Sailor Moon owes its' theme and plot to our solar system and the planets' astrological meanings in both eastern and western astrology. I knew the Sailor Moon senshi's personalities and appearances are based on the planets' astrological symbolism: Mercury's intelligence and aquatics, Venus' beauty and golden touch, Mars' mean streak and fiery heat, and Jupiter's outgoing happiness and "wood" powers.

Sorry for double post, I have to mention the category of "dwarf planets" or "planetoids" in our solar system. They are (other than Pluto with its natural satellite Charon acts as a "binary"): Eris, Ceres, Juno, Pallas, Vesta, Sedna, Quaoar, Mamemake, Haumea, Dysonoma and Chiron. I don't know all of them, since astronomers continue to find or discover more, and finding what to name them when they confirmed their existence. Not only Lilith is the "Earth's second natural satellite", Cruithne is another celestial object said to orbit around the earth.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Dwarf&Display=Sats 

So, there you have it: 8 planets with Earth or "sol III" included orbit around the Sun (our closest star), the Moon which influences the Earth in many ways like our seas' tidal forces, 2 what-could-be natural satellites of Earth, and 12 notable dwarf planets or planetoids. The total number of 23 celestial objects (or 24 if you count the "true node" but used in astrology) besides Earth, double the "12 celestial bodies": the Earth, 7 planets, Sun, Moon and the former planet Pluto or a binary with Charon.

Awesome as always, Uranus!!! Is it complete?? The main post does not want to load ;-;

P.S: Sorry for the necroposting
P.P.S: Also sorry for asking thing while you are in LOA