Eros is creative, in contrast to its opposite, THANATOS, the death instinct, which is destructive.
Eros, asteroid 433 (the 433rd asteroid to be discovered, on August 13, 1898), was named after the god of love in Greek mythology, the son of Ares (Mars) and Aphrodite (Venus). It was the first known asteroid to pass inside the orbit of Mars. It has an orbital period of 1 3/4 years and is 22 kilometers in diameter. Eros is one of the more recent asteroids to be investigated by astrologers. Preliminary material on Eros can be found in Demetra George and Douglas Bloch’s Astrology for Yourself, and an ephemeris (table of celestial locations) for Eros can be found in the back of the second edition of George and Bloch’s Asteroid Goddesses. Unlike the planets, which are associated with a wide range of phenomena, the smaller asteroids are said to represent a single principle. George and Bloch (1987) give Eros’s principle as “vitality and passion.” Zipporah Dobyns associates Eros with romantic love. J. Lee Lehman contends that Eros is the ruler of romance and passionate attachment. Lehman contrasts Sappho, which she regards as raw sexual drive, with Eros, which she sees as more mental—the conceptualization of attraction. Jacob Schwartz gives the astrological significance of this asteroid as “sexuality, eroticism, passionate romance, being ‘turned on.’”
(asteroid 433), an asteroid discovered in 1898 by the amateur astronomer G. Witt in Berlin. Eros belongs to the terrestrial group of asteroids, which closely approach the earth in their motion about the sun. Eros’ period of revolution around the sun is 1.76 years; its semimajor axis is 1.46 astronomical units, its eccentricity is 0.22, and its inclination to the plane of the ecliptic is 10.8°. At aphelion, Eros travels beyond the orbit of Mars. Its perihelion exceeds the semimajor axis of the earth’s orbit by only 0.14 astronomical unit. Closest approaches to the earth (favorable oppositions) occur at 37-year intervals and have been observed in 1894, 1930–31, and 1967–68.
The closeness of Eros to the earth has made it a convenient object for determining the parallax of the sun. In 1950 the American astronomer E. Rabe, processing observations of Eros conducted in the period 1926–45, obtained a value of 8.79835 ± 0.00058” for the value of the solar parallax, which was close to the then accepted value of 8.80”. The calculations were later repeated for observations conducted in the period 1926–65, and the new value of the parallax—8.79417” ± 0.00018” (Rabe, Francis)—completely agreed with radar determinations.
Eros is a relatively bright asteroid: its brightness at opposition ranges from 6.7 to 11.3 stellar magnitudes, depending on the distance from the earth and the orientation of the asteroid. It was the first asteroid for which periodic variations of brightness were detected (1901). The maximum variation of brightness is 1.5 stellar magnitudes, and its period is 5 hr 16 min. Investigation of the brightness curve, which has two maxima and two minima per period, led astronomers to the conclusion that Eros is a rotating oblate body. This was later confirmed by direct observations. Observations of occultations of stars by Eros (Eros was the first asteroid for which this phenomenon was observed) have made it possible to determine that the contour of the visible edge of Eros has an irregular form, resembling a dumbbell with diameters of 21 and 13 km.
IU. V. BATRAKOV
in Greek mythology, the god of love and the personification of sexual desire, which ensures the continuation of life on earth. According to the Theogony of Hesiod, Eros was the son of Chaos. Other versions of the myth state that he was the son of either Aphrodite and Hermes or Artemis and Ares. In mythology, Eros was portrayed as a playful youth with golden wings. He carried a bow, quiver, and arrows. Even the gods were vulnerable to Eros’s arrows, which never missed their mark, arousing amorous passion in whomever they struck. In a figurative sense, “Eros” means love; from it are derived the terms “eroticism,” “erotica,” and “erotic poetry.” The counterparts of Eros in Roman mythology are Amor and Cupid.