Astronomy and Astrology and Changing Zodiac Signs

Referencing all this astrology stuff, I feel like Luke Wilson in the movie 'Idiocracy'...C'mon people this isn't new stuff! Some poor guy somewhere was trying to explain axial precession and the difference between astronomy and astrology and the 'students'-whoever they were-obviously there was a reporter in the bunch- misunderstood and somehow this makes the news as something 'new'. OK, I've been suckered in and I'll try to explain this in a less scientific way.

I was horrified by what I saw on NBC news last night, the anchor said 'precision' instead of 'precession', and referred to Ophiuchus as an 'unpronounceable constellation'. Off-e-YOU-kuss, if anyone is interested. Why he did not Google it and learn how to pronounce it is beyond me. I usually watch ABC, but for whatever reason NBC was playing on the tube. I know that today some media outlets are also trying to clarify this 'news', but I thought I would also give it a shot. We are the first group of humans who have lost touch with the reality of the night sky. We struggle to learn and see and understand, whereas just over a hundred years ago, everyone knew the constellations. Runaway slaves navigated by them, as did sailors. We have lost this in modern times and it is sadly no longer part of our culture. Most places are so light polluted that you can't even see the stars at night, but I digress.

Astrology is based on the idea that the Earth is at the center of the solar system and that planets and the sun and the moon revolve around the Earth, and have a influence on life here. Astrology uses the positions of the the solar system objects relative to a fixed Earth to try to explain Earthly events and predict the future. Most astrologers today use a system based on the ideas of Ptolemy, the Egyptian astrologer, astronomer and mathematician who lived almost two thousand years ago in the first century AD. In those days, the science of astronomy and the art of astrology were mixed practices. Today astronomers go to great lengths to separate themselves from astrologers.

Astronomy recognizes that the sun is the center of the solar system. People become confused because the two use most of the same constellations. Think of constellations as road maps for the sky. The plane of the solar system is the ecliptic and it is across that ring-like path that we can see the other planets, as well as the Sun and Moon, seemingly move across our sky. This is why people used to think the solar system was Earth-centered. Think of the constellations that fall on the ecliptic 'ring in the sky' as cities marking an interstate map. We call the group of them the zodiac constellations. Astrology recognizes only twelve for simplicity, but like the boundaries of cities, scientists have also changed the boundaries of constellations over the past several thousand years. Everything changes in our universe because everything is moving...The Earth is moving, the Sun is moving, the solar system itself is moving..The Earth is tilted and has a slight wobble. Over thousands of years that wobble causes us to see and view the stars differently. Today, in our time, Polaris is the north star or more properly, the pole star, but due to the Earth's tilt and wobble the imaginary pole line has not always pointed to that star. Around 3500 BC, the star Thuban or Alpha Draconis was the pole star. Around 400 BC, the pole star was Kochab in Ursa Minor. You know this star as the second brightest star in the Little Dipper. It is in the ladle of the dipper whereas Polaris, our current pole star, is the end of the handle of the dipper.

Imagine that the Earth is wearing a hula hoop in a fixed, almost level location near the equator. Over time the Earth wobbles and tilts, the hula hoop also tilts and 'moves'. If you were on the Earth, you would see the hoop change positions if you lived long enough. The ecliptic is an imaginary line representing the average plane of the solar system, but if you could look up and see it as a giant roadway or hula hoop, you would see that thousands of years ago it ran farther north than it does today. It moves. It takes almost 26000 years for the Earth to make one full circle in its wobble, and that is called axial precession or precession of the equinoxes. It is pronounced like 'pre-session', not pro-session or pre-cision.

Ophiuchus is and always has been a constellation in the sky on the ecliptic above Scorpius (and there's another difference, Scorpius v. Scorpio). At this moment in time, the constellation of Ophiuchus doesn't really lie on the ecliptic-neither does Aries, but they have in the past and while Western astrologers don't count Ophiuchus as a zodiac sign, astronomers do because it is what is known as a sidereal zodiac constellation. There are several other small constellations that also might touch the ecliptic at a given point in time. Western astrology just generalizes and keeps the zodiac at 12 tropical constellations by convention. Ophiuchus was once called Serpentarius. If you remember Greek mythology, you will recall that Hercules fought a great serpent, and in the sky, Ophiuchus the serpent bearer is next to the constellation of Hercules. To our eyes, the brightest stars are in the shape of a large coffin, so some people call Ophiuchus the Coffin.

Again, modern Western astrology is based on a fixed system-an Earth that doesn't move-that , whereas things move around it. the changes they recognize are those dealing with the seasons, how an area of Earth is oriented to the sun.

Astronomy understands that everything moves and that things change over time. Precession is slow, but we can actually see the movement as it is almost one degree for every 70 years. (360 degrees in a circle-remember the imaginary line at the pole wobbling makes a big circle in the sky-70 times 360 equals 25200 years. It's close. )

Now, has your sun sign changed??

Yes in astronomical terms and no in astrological terms.

First, understand what your sun sign is in astrology...it is the constellation on the horizon at the point where the sun rises on the day you were born. As the seasons change, the constellations change. Above, I used the analogy that a constellation was like a city with its borders changing. In 1930 the International Astronomical Union set a uniform standard for the borders of constellations. Not all constellations are the same size and the sun would spend less time rising in Aries(small constellation) than it would in Aquarius(large constellation) The IAU just defined the borders of the constellations as they were and took no consideration of astrologers needs for something uniform and regular.

Astrologers fixed the dates that demark a sun sign, but in reality, because of precession and because everything is moving, sidereal astronomers know that the Sun, for example, actually rises in Taurus from about May 16-June 5, not from the fixed April 20th to May 21st. About every seventy and a half years, it changes by a day. The May 16 start date is based on IAU calculations for the year 2002.

Ptolemy died in the year 168 AD.

2002 AD minus 168 AD equals 1834 years.

1834 years divided by 70.5 years equals 26 days.

April 20(the fixed astrological date) + 26 days = May 16 (the approximate actual date that the sun begins to rise in Taurus)

In our lifetimes, this hasn't changed appreciably. My birthday is May 13th so sidereally, actually, on the day I was born, the sun rose in the constellation of Aries, not Taurus, but astrologically speaking, I am a stubborn, earthy Taurean. Anyone who knows me knows that to be truer than you could believe. However, the fact that I am writing this note is an act very characteristic of an Arian.

In sidereal astronomy, the sun also rises in the constellation of Ophiuchus between November 29 and December 17. In modern Western astrology, this overlaps the sun signs of Scorpius and Sagittarius, and therefore is not used in order to simplify things.

One system, astrology, is fixed. The other, astronomy, changes.

If you believe in astrology, then your sun sign has not changed. If you were a Taurus, you are still a Taurus.