Hylonome is a small icy world that loops around the Sun between Saturn and Neptune. Astronomers file it as a centaur, which is a minor body on a long orbit between the giant planets. Astrologers read it as a marker of grief, of mourning, and of the voice a person finds again after a loss.
This guide covers four things. What Hylonome is as a physical object. What the myth behind its name tells. Where it sits in your own chart. And, at the end, the dated sign entries worked out from NASA data.
What Hylonome is
Hylonome carries the catalogue number 10370. David Jewitt and Jane Luu found it on 27 February 1995, from Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Only a handful of centaurs were known at that point, so the find was news.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab lists its orbit like this. The average distance from the Sun is 24.9 times the Earth’s distance. One full lap takes 124.6 years. The orbit is stretched, not round: at its closest it sits 18.9 Earth distances out, and at its widest 31.0. It is too faint for its width to be pinned down, so JPL records only its brightness.
That stretched shape matters for astrology. A body moves fast when it is close to the Sun and slow when it is far. So Hylonome does not spend an equal share of time in each sign. The tables further down show the gap clearly.
The myth behind the name
Ovid tells the story in the Metamorphoses, written around 8 AD, in book twelve. A wedding turns into a brawl between the Lapiths and the centaurs. A javelin strikes Cyllarus, the centaur Hylonome loves. She reaches him, holds him while he dies, and then throws herself on the same weapon.
The astronomers who named the object kept that scene. The naming note they filed calls her the fairest of the female centaurs, and it repeats the death of Cyllarus. The name was chosen for the grief in it.
What astrologers read into it
Here is the honest part. No ancient astrologer used Hylonome. The object was found in 1995. Every reading of it is modern, and nearly all of it was written in the last thirty years. There is no long record to lean on, and no study to point to, because astrology is not a science. What exists is a young reading, shared by a small group of astrologers, built straight from the myth.
Within that young reading, three themes come up. The first is grief that has no public place to go. The second is the loss of a shared voice, since Hylonome loses her partner in the middle of a crowd that is busy fighting. The third is what comes after: the slow work of speaking again in your own name.
So astrologers link Hylonome to mourning, to collective sorrow, and to the moment a person stops being half of a pair. It also gets linked to speaking up for the dead, and to grief that is carried by a whole group rather than one person.
Hylonome in your chart
Picture your birth chart as a house with twelve rooms. Each room covers one area of life: money, home, work, love, health. The planets are the furniture inside those rooms. A natal chart is simply the map of where the furniture stood on the day you were born.
In that picture, Hylonome is a small piece. It is not a sofa. It is more like a photo on a shelf. You do not notice it every day, and then one day you do. Its house, which is the room it sits in, shows the area of life where grief and voice meet for you.
A few short readings, by room:
- Third room, which covers speech and siblings: grief that needs words.
- Fourth room, which covers home and family: sorrow handed down the family line.
- Seventh room, which covers partners: loss inside a close bond.
- Tenth room, which covers work and public life: grief that becomes your public subject.
- Eleventh room, which covers groups and friends: sorrow shared with a community.
Its sign colours the tone rather than the subject. A Hylonome in Capricorn holds grief in a quiet, dutiful way. A Hylonome in Aquarius pushes it outward, toward the group. Because the body is slow, everyone born within a few years of you shares your sign. That is the mark of a generational body, and it is why the house matters more than the sign in a personal reading. The same logic applies to the other centaurs, and our guide to the centaurs in astrology sets out how the whole family is read.
Where Hylonome is right now
On 16 September 2026, Hylonome sits at the very start of Aquarius, at zero degrees and twenty-two minutes. It moved into Aquarius for good on 11 January 2026. It stays there until the very end of 2039.
Hylonome sign dates, 1931 to 2039
Most articles about Hylonome give no dates at all. Here is where these come from. We asked NASA’s JPL Horizons system for the position of object 10370 as seen from Earth, one day at a time, from 1920 to 2045. Horizons returns what it calls the ecliptic longitude of date. That is the same frame of reference a natal chart uses, so the numbers drop straight in. We then read off every date the longitude crossed a sign line.
One wrinkle. Earth overtakes Hylonome once a year, which makes the centaur appear to run backwards for a few months. Near a sign line it can step in, step back out, and step in again over two or three years. The table gives the final entry, the one that holds.
| Sign | Entered for good | Exit date | Years in sign. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aries | 9 March 1931 | 16 February 1948 | 16.9 years. |
| Taurus | 16 February 1948 | 15 March 1962 | 14.1 years. |
| Gemini | 15 March 1962 | 7 April 1973 | 11.1 years. |
| Cancer | 7 April 1973 | 25 June 1981 | 8.2 years. |
| Leo | 25 June 1981 | 21 July 1988 | 7.1 years. |
| Virgo | 21 July 1988 | 5 September 1994 | 6.1 years. |
| Libra | 5 September 1994 | 13 October 2000 | 6.1 years. |
| Scorpio | 13 October 2000 | 19 October 2007 | 7.0 years. |
| Sagittarius | 19 October 2007 | 23 November 2015 | 8.1 years. |
| Capricorn | 23 November 2015 | 11 January 2026 | 10.1 years. |
| Aquarius | 11 January 2026 | 27 December 2039 | 14.0 years. |
| Pisces | 27 December 2039 | mid 2050s | about 16 years. |
Look at the spread. Six years in Virgo, six in Libra, and almost seventeen in Aries. The reason is the stretched orbit. Hylonome swings closest to the Sun near the start of Libra, so it races through that stretch of the zodiac and crawls through the opposite one.
Find your Hylonome by birth year
Because the body is slow, your birth year is enough in most cases. If you were born in a year that appears twice, check your birth date against the table above.
| Born between | Your Hylonome sign. |
|---|---|
| 1931 and early 1948 | Aries. |
| 1948 and early 1962 | Taurus. |
| 1962 and early 1973 | Gemini. |
| 1973 and mid 1981 | Cancer. |
| 1981 and mid 1988 | Leo. |
| 1988 and late 1994 | Virgo. |
| 1994 and late 2000 | Libra. |
| 2000 and late 2007 | Scorpio. |
| 2007 and late 2015 | Sagittarius. |
| 2015 and early 2026 | Capricorn. |
| 2026 and late 2039 | Aquarius. |
For the house, which is the part that is truly yours, you need a birth time. The room Hylonome sits in shifts every two hours.
How to use it without overdoing it
Give Hylonome a small weight. Read the Sun, Moon and rising sign first. Read the planets next. Bring in the centaurs last, as a detail that adds colour to a picture you have already drawn.
Hylonome also works well next to its siblings. Chariklo is read for care and holding space. Nessus is read for harm that repeats down a line. Pholus is read for the small trigger with the large result. Read as a set, they map a family of hard subjects. The asteroid goddesses cover a separate set of themes and sit closer to the Sun.
Common questions about Hylonome
Is Hylonome in every birth chart?
Yes. Every object in the solar system has a position for any date, so Hylonome has a place in every chart. Most chart software leaves it switched off, so you add it by hand or by its number, 10370.
How do I find my Hylonome sign?
Use the birth year table above. For a date near a boundary, check the dated table first. For the house, enter your birth time, date and place into chart software that takes minor bodies.
Is Hylonome the same thing as Chiron?
No, though both are centaurs. Chiron was found in 1977 and is far better known. Chiron is read for a wound that teaches. Hylonome is read for grief and for the voice that returns after it.
How much weight should Hylonome carry in a reading?
A light one. It is a small body with a young reading and no long record behind it. It works as a footnote that sharpens a theme you already see, not as the theme itself.
Does Hylonome go retrograde?
It appears to. Earth passes it each year, and for a few months it looks as though the centaur is sliding backwards across the sky. The motion is an effect of our own viewpoint, not a real reversal.
Why do the dates in this article differ from other sites?
Two reasons. Some sites use the first crossing of a sign line rather than the final one. Others use a different frame of reference. Our dates use the final crossing and the ecliptic of date, taken from JPL Horizons.
The short version
Hylonome is a slow, distant centaur named after a mourner in Ovid. Its astrological reading is young and small, and it points at grief and at the voice found afterwards. It entered Aquarius on 11 January 2026 and holds that sign until the end of 2039. Find your own sign in the table, then find the room it sits in. That room is where the story is.