In a tweet on July 16, 2020, NASA clarified that the zodiac had not been altered. The text of the tweet is as follows: “Your comments on a zodiac narrative that resurfaces every few years have caught our attention. No, the zodiac has not been altered. The Babylonians elected to leave out a 13th sign when they created the constellations 3,000 years ago. So, we crunched the numbers.”
The tweet includes a link to a NASA Tumblr page, which goes into greater detail about the story and distinguishes between astronomy and astrology. Astronomy is “the scientific study of everything in outer space,” while astrology is “the belief that the positions of stars and planets can influence human events.”
The Babylonians, who lived over 3,000 years ago, split the zodiac into 12 divisions and chose constellations for each, which corresponded to the 12 months of the calendar, according to the Wikipedia.
“However, there were 13 constellations in the zodiac according to ancient Babylonian tales. So they chose Ophiuchus to be the one to be left out. Even then, several of the chosen 12 didn’t fit cleanly into their designated pie slice and crossed into the next.”
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How often do the signs of the zodiac change?
“It slews slowly around in a circle every 26,000 years, much like a spinning top wobbling around on a table. On a daily timescale, this additional motion is nearly undetectable, but it mounts up over millennia.” So, while the stars do not move, they appear to move over centuries.
Is it possible for a person’s zodiac sign to change?
No, it’s more like once every 30 years or so. (Thank G, you’ve got some time to think about it.) “Each sign has 30 degrees, and the advanced sun moves less than a degree per year, so this movement is quite slow,” Montfar explains.
Why do the dates of the zodiac signs differ?
The finding was first announced by NASA in a blog post earlier this year, explaining that when the ancient Babylonians developed the zodiac over 3,000 years ago, they wanted dates on the calendar to match to star constellations. However, there were 13 constellations to consider, and they were using a 12-month calendar. As a result, they abandoned Ophiuchus.
NASA also pointed out that the Earth’s axis no longer points in the same direction as it did when the constellations were first drawn, therefore all of our signs now have various date ranges.
To put it another way, astrological turmoil. NASA’s science nerds don’t seem to mind that they’ve turned our lives upside down. “Here at NASA, we study astronomy, not astrology,” they said in a statement last week. We didn’t make any changes to the zodiac signs; we simply did the math.”
When a leap year occurs, do the zodiac dates change?
We add an extra day to the year every four years to keep the calendars we developed in sync with the Earth’s orbit around the Sun and the seasons.
The Earth’s orbit around the Sun takes about 365.25 days, and the extra 0.25 days equals an extra day every four years, hence the leap year.
The zodiac seasons are defined by where the Sun is at the moment of your birth, not by our calendar, and the leap year takes this into account as well.
“The sky is a 360-degree circle, but there are 365 days in a year, so we have a leap year to account for that,” Francesca explained.
Why do the signs of the zodiac change throughout time?
Babylonian astronomers split the ecliptic into 12 equal “signs” at the end of the 5th century BC, analogous to 12 schematic months of 30 days each. The first known celestial coordinate system was created when each sign contained 30 degrees of celestial longitude. According to contemporary astronomical estimates, the zodiac was first used between 409 and 398 BC, during Persian dominance, and most likely within a few years of 401 BC. Unlike modern astrologers, who place the beginning of the sign of Aries at the position of the Sun at the Northern Hemisphere’s vernal equinox (March equinox), Babylonian astronomers fixed the zodiac in relation to stars, placing the beginning of Cancer at the “Rear Twin Star” ( Geminorum) and the beginning of Aquarius at the “Rear Star of the Goat-Fish” ( Capricorni).
Since Babylonian times, the time of year when the Sun is in a certain constellation has altered due to equinox precession; the point of March equinox has moved from Aries to Pisces.
They formed an appropriate basis of reference for formulating predictions about a planet’s longitude because the divide was made into equal arcs of 30 each. However, Babylonian observational measurement techniques were still in the early stages of development. They used a group of “normal stars” near the ecliptic (9 degrees latitude) as observational reference points to help place a planet within the ecliptic coordinate system.
A planet’s location in Babylonian astrological journals was usually stated in terms of a zodiac sign alone, rather than particular degrees within a sign. When degrees of longitude were given, they were stated in relation to the 30 of the zodiacal sign, rather than the continuous 360 ecliptic. The positions of prominent astronomical phenomena were estimated in sexagesimal fractions of a degree in astronomical ephemerides (equivalent to minutes and seconds of arc). The daily locations of a planet were less important in daily ephemerides than the astrologically significant times when the planet moved from one zodiac sign to the next.
Is it possible for me to have a different zodiac sign?
If you’re into astrology, you’ve definitely heard of the term “cusp birth,” which refers to a birthdate that falls on the border between two sun signs’ date ranges. What does it mean to be born on the cusp of two zodiac signs, though? Some people who were born on the beginning or last day of a zodiac sign’s season claim to be a mix of the two, but is this actually true?
Finally, when it comes to astrology’s cusp signs, here’s the verdict: they don’t exist. The concept of “cusp signs” is a common astrological myth. Because the sun can’t be in two places at once, a planet can only be in one place in the zodiac at a time, which means you can only have one sun sign. Please accept my apologies for bursting any cusp-claimers’ bubbles! However, if you were born on the “cusp” of two zodiac signs, there are a few things to consider, as this placement can make things a little more tricky.
Which zodiac sign has the most intelligence?
Aquarius is the zodiac sign with the highest intelligence. Uranus, the planet of invention, creativity, and expanded consciousness, rules them. As a result, this air sign does more than just process information and spit it back out: they evaluate, comprehend, and expand on it. “They’re creative, unconventional, and frequently ahead of their time,” Kovach adds. “They have a good understanding of how upcoming trends work and may have a picture of the future that others don’t.”