Chiron is a small icy body orbiting between Saturn and Uranus, one of the class of objects known as centaurs, bodies that cross the orbits of the outer planets on unstable, eventually short-lived paths. It carries the dual designation of minor planet 2060 and comet 95P, since it has been observed to develop a faint coma.
Modern astrology adopted it as a distinct point soon after its discovery, naming it for the wise centaur of Greek myth, teacher of heroes and, in the story, a healer who could not heal his own wound. Its adoption came at a moment when Western astrology was also absorbing the four major asteroids into regular practice, and Chiron was folded into that same wave of interest in newly catalogued minor bodies, quickly acquiring both a body of interpretive literature and a dedicated glyph distinct from anything used for the planets or the earlier asteroid symbols.
Kowal found it on photographic plates taken at Palomar Observatory, and the object was announced first under the provisional designation 1977 UB before receiving both the minor-planet number 2060 and, once its faint cometary activity was observed decades later, the additional comet catalogue number 95P, an unusual double status that later centaur discoveries would share.