While Unicode currently supports some astrological symbols in the Miscellaneous Symbols block, there are some others that see reasonably common use that might be worth including as well.
First of all, there is an astrological Pluto of which I have observed three glyph variants. It consists of a small circle at top with a upward semi circle cupping the small circle below with the semicircle attached to a + like the one at the bottom of symbols for Mercury, Venus, and Neptune. The variants that I have observed of this symbol are 1) The small circle touches the semicircle 2) The small circle is separate from the semicircle with the same center 3) As per 2) except the vertical stroke of the + pierces the semicircle to touch the small circle. Most of the freeware astrological fonts I have seen incorporate this symbol, and most of those also have a separate character for the astronomical Pluto sign U+2647, so it may be worth considering adding a separate character for the astrological Pluto to Unicode instead of simply treating this a glyph variation. Secondly, the four principal asteroids, Ceres, Juno, Pallas, and Vesta all have standard astrological symbols. Ceres's symbol looks like a right half ring atop a +, Juno's symbol is an eight rayed aster with the bottom ray connecting to a + below, The symbol for Pallas is a diamond connected to a + below. The usual astrological symbol for Vesta looks like a pair of nested v's, with a right angle between the legs, topped by a vertical tilde (representing a tongue of flame and in some fonts is replaced by a tongue of flame). The upper v is smaller than the lower v and is usually sans-serif. The lower v often has exaggerated outward serifs, and is sometimes represented with a flattened bottom. ( \_/ ) The two v's and the vertical tilde, while nested, do not touch. Thirdly, the centaur [1] Chiron, despite having been discovered in 1977, has also developed a standard astrological glyph as well. Above is a capital K with the vertical stroke continuing down to an oval, wider than it is tall. (One source I have seen indicates that the ratio between the major and minor axes of the ellipse should be the golden ratio, but I have observed considerable variation.) While there are other asteroids and centaurs that are used by some astrologers, as far as I can determine, there is no agreement as to what the symbols for them should be, nor which ones are significant, if any. The vertical stroke and golden ratio oval of Chiron with a symbol of some type atop the vertical stroke is used as a basis of the symbols for other centaurs by some but not all astrologers.A character for this centaur stem might be of use. I have also seen two alternate glyphs for Uranus and Vesta which my sources indicate are older representations, but do not appear to be commonly used today, The alternate Uranus is a circle with a center dot and a vertical arrow extending upward from the circle. The alternate Vesta is a square with an attached + below and a v placed so that the top of the square goes through the middle of the v. *** So here is the rough draft of a proposal: 1) Add six symbols to the miscellaneous symbols block: ASTROLOGICAL PLUTO CERES JUNO PALLAS VESTA CHIRON 2) Also space should be tentatively reserved for: HISTORIC URANUS HISTORIC VESTA CENTAUR STEM but I can't see actually making the assignments for these based on the information at my disposal. 3) These points should be assigned contiguously. 4) The alternate versions of Pluto, Uranus, and Vesta might be handled by Variation Selectors instead of by a separate codepoint. With tens of thousands of numbered asteroids (several thousand named), over forty known centaurs, and a host of other objects in the solar system, I cannot see trying to reserve space for astrological symbols for all such objects in Unicode. (Doing so would require over one full plane!) Beyond a few common symbols, such characters are clearly private use in nature for now. However, the nine I have presented here are I think worth considering, especially the four asteroids. Input from someone who studies astrology should probably also be gotten. I came to this indirectly from looking at several freeware astrology fonts, trying to decide which one to include on my system, not because of any great interest in the subject myself. While I have looked at quite a few astrology websites in the past couple of days, so as to determine whether there were characters worth including in Unicode, I can't say that I have done an exhaustive search of this field of knowledge. [1] centaur - an asteroid/comet with a perihelion located between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune whose orbit crosses that of one or more of Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune. The first known and largest of these objects is Chiron discovered 1977. Observation has since shown that Chiron is a large comet like body (150 - 200 km in diameter.) Ernest Cline [EMAIL PROTECTED]
