Are They Changing the Zodiac Signs Again

Traversed by the sun, only non in your horoscope

DeAgostini/Getty

Seriously? This once again?

Over the weekend I started seeing links to articles challenge that NASA has changed the signs of the zodiac. I knew immediately what this was near, fifty-fifty every bit I was scratching my caput nigh a) how this is news, and b) how short people's memories are.

I found a few articles near this NASA "news" here and there; there'south i on Yahoo that has the headline, "Your Astrological Sign Just Changed, Thank you To NASA". The get-go paragraph alone is burdened with quite a few scientific errors:

Advertizement

"We don't want to be dramatic, just NASA merely ruined our lives. For the first fourth dimension in 3,000 years, they've decided to update the astrological signs. This means that the bulk of us are virtually to feel a full identity crisis. Patently, these changes are due to the fact that the constellations are not in the same position in the sky that they one time were, and the star signs are most a month off now, every bit a effect. To further confuse things, at that place is at present a new, 13th sign, called Ophiuchus, which those born betwixt Nov 29 and December 17 are lucky enough to accept to learn to pronounce."

Read more than: Astrology is scientific theory, courtroom told

Cripes. No, no, and no. First off, NASA did not "update the astrological signs". Second, the constellations haven't changed. And third, Ophiuchus is an ancient constellation, identified by the Greeks thousands of years ago.

So what's the deal? Well, before we even get started, keep this in heed: astrology isn't scientific discipline; information technology's nonsense. It's been tested 10 ways to Sunday and every time it fails. Fifty-fifty astrologers have come up with tests for it, and it has failed those. Astrology doesn't piece of work.

Despite that, lots of people believe in it. That's why I wrote a lengthy and detailed debunking of star divination.

Zodiacal confusion

And then what'due south the deal with this contempo silliness? It has to do with the zodiac. As I wrote in an article on the zodiac:

"The planets, including the Earth, orbit the Sun on pretty much the aforementioned plane (from the side, the solar system's planets' orbits wait flat). From the Globe, it looks similar the Sun moves around usa once per twelvemonth. The path it takes across the sky is the aforementioned year after year, and we telephone call this the ecliptic. The planets all move beyond the sky in that same path, likewise.

A cultural chance across Renaissance Italy: Explore Florence and Bolgna on a New Scientist Discovery Bout

"So, similar clockwork, the Lord's day passes into the aforementioned constellations at a sure fourth dimension every year. Y'all know the names of these constellations: Sagittarius, Libra, Scorpius, Aries, Gemini… the constellation of the zodiac, or, if you prefer, the zodiacal constellations."

Read more than: Paranormal investigations: why you want to believe

These 12 zodiacal constellations have been recognised in one manner or another around the world, though about countries (and the International Astronomical Union) accept adopted a modified version of them known to the ancient Babylonians and Greeks.

The matter is, there are more than than 12 constellations the lord's day can laissez passer through. Some are smaller, or have fainter stars, so they go ignored. The biggest is Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearer, which is a huge constellation taking up quite a bit of angelic real manor, and in fact the sun spends more time in Ophiuchus than Scorpius. Scorpius has brighter stars and an obvious scorpion-like shape, so it gets better press.

And then no, NASA didn't add together in Ophiuchus or modify the zodiac or anything similar that. Ophiuchus has been around this whole time, but has been ignored past astrologers. They're the ones who should have the arraign for all this, not actual scientists who don't even recall astrology is worth wrapping fish in anyhow.

Worse, there aren't really 13 zodiacal constellations. By some counts, at that place are equally many every bit 21. Not only that, but Earth wobbles like a top, very slowly, and over centuries that changes the dates the sun is in a given constellation. If you were built-in in tardily March in ancient Greece, you lot would have been an Aries. Today, you'd exist a Pisces.

Given that astrology is based on all this, shouldn't astrologers at least become their basic facts straight earlier trying to influence your life?

Not news

Finally, why is this of a sudden news? This is the concluding irony hither. This new foofaraw got started, plainly, due to an article on a NASA site for kids called SpacePlace. I like this site a lot and refer quite a few parents and teachers to it. Information technology has uncomplicated explanations written at a level for children to sympathize, and information technology's fun and authentic.

The SpacePlace article, Constellations and the Calendar, has been effectually a while but was updated in January 2016, which may take caught some astrology laic's eye. The article – well worth your time to read – talks about how the zodiac constellations are defined, and how, over time, they've changed (as I described above). Apparently, someone didn't read information technology very carefully, or didn't empathize it, and wrote that NASA had changed the zodiac. So, yes. Wow.

But this isn't even the offset fourth dimension this sort of thing has happened. Nearly exactly the aforementioned story bubbled up in 2011.

You can't keep a skilful slice of pseudoscience downwards. It'south like a zombie, always ascension over again.

Read more: 33 reasons why we tin can't think clearly most climatic change

You know what also rises? The sun. And when it does, it'll exist because World is spinning, and orbiting it, and we'll see the stars and planets and moons doing their thing. And nosotros'll study them with scientific discipline and larn their ways, and if people who believe in astrology want to proceed looking to the past, well, permit 'em. As long every bit they promise to retrieve information technology.

And that reminds me: in one sense, astrology is correct. There is a group of people whose lives are affected past the stars and planets: astronomers. And if I can assist spread that particular love, and then I'll be more than happy to.

This commodity first appeared on Slate

More on these topics:

• astronomy

clarkdoomad91.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2107207-no-nasa-hasnt-changed-the-zodiac-signs-or-added-a-new-one/

Share this post