NASA explains that the position of the "signs of the zodiac" has long changed. Panic in women's magazines

Never before has a simple scientific message on the educational portal NASA SpacePlace caused such a violent reaction in women's magazines. But the scientists just reminded that the position of the constellations relative to the ecliptic of the Sun is constantly changing due to precession.

It would seem, who cares about the precession and the ecliptic?

But this scientific comment provoked a violent reaction in the women's press: “ NASA has updated astrological signs for the first time in 2000 years! 86% of us have changed the sign of the horoscope! ". You can imagine what kind of stress the news has caused those who believe in astrology. If the sign of the horoscope has changed, these unfortunate people will have to reconsider their whole life. Maybe even change her husband.

It must be admitted, it turned out notable trolling from NASA.

NASA SpacePlace simply explains that astronomy and astrology are completely different things. Astrology is in no way a science. No one has proved that with the help of astrology, one can predict the future or give a characteristic to a person only on the basis of his date of birth. This is a completely stupid assumption. In principle, most people understand this. This is understood even by those who like to read every day, like fairy stories, their “astrological forecast” or “horoscope” for the day. But there are exceptions. In some particularly neglected cases, people even make important life decisions taking into account the position of the stars in the sky - for example, they compare the "signs of the zodiac" of different people to determine their compatibility.

NASA SpacePlace gives a brief overview of what the zodiac and zodiac constellations are.

The zodiac (from the Greek, “a circle of animals”) is a belt near the ecliptic, along which the apparent annual movement of the Sun occurs, as well as a sequence of sections into which this belt is divided. While the sun moves almost strictly along the ecliptic, and various constellations periodically shift north or south of the ecliptic. The ecliptic passes through 13 constellations: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces and Ophiuchus, but they decided to ignore the latter for convenience.

When the Earth, the Sun and the constellation are approximately on the same imaginary line, the astrologers believe that at this time "the Sun is in such a constellation."



In ancient times, astronomers did not fully understand how the Earth, the Sun and the stars move. They did not understand the scale of the universe, but still did not give up trying to find some kind of regularity. They tried hard to figure out what they see in the starry sky. Thanks to a rich human imagination, astrology quite harmoniously fit into many ancient religions.

People imagined that constellations could be important symbols, tell stories about their gods and serve as illustrations of myths, ancient stories and tales. Echoes of those ancient pagan religions and myths, we are now seeing in the form of "horoscopes" in women's magazines.

For the first time, the concept of the zodiac and the zodiac constellations was introduced in Babylon about 3000 years ago. Since Babylon used a calendar of 12 months, based on the phases of the moon, it was very convenient to divide the zodiac into 12 equal parts, which correspond to months.

According to the Babylonian sources, they consisted of 13 zodiacal constellations, so that one for convenience had to be abandoned. Unfortunately, even after this, some of the selected dozen did not quite fit into the allotted 1/12 of the year and went beyond their segment. For example, the Sun passes against the background of the Virgo constellation for 45 days, against the background of Scorpio - 7 days, against the background of Ophiuchus - 18 days. All this was simplified, and Ophiuchus was thrown out altogether.

After an incident of 3000 years, the picture has changed a little. The fact is that when the Earth rotates, there is a precession of the earth's axis with a period of 25,800 years .


Earth axis precession, view from the north pole. Animation: Ereenegee The

precession with a period of 25,800 years occurs under the influence of the gravity of the Moon, the Sun, and the inhomogeneity of the density of mass distribution inside the Earth.

The ancient astronomers did not know this, so they did not anticipate a shift in the zodiacal constellations relative to the calendar year. But that is exactly what happened. Therefore, the current picture of the zodiac is slightly different from the one that was calculated 3000 years ago.

Women's magazines publish a real table of horoscope signs(according to the dates of the calendar year), as amended for precession, as of 2016. For example, those born on August 4 considered themselves to be Lions (or Lionesses), but with the specified dates of the horoscope they became Cancers.

Capricorn: January 20 - February 16
Aquarius: February 16 - March 11
Pisces: March 11 - April 18
Aries: April 18 - May 13
Taurus: May 13 - June 21
Gemini: June 21 - July 20
Cancer: July 20 - August 10
Leo : August 10 - September 16
Virgo: September 16 - October 30
Libra: October 30 - November 23
Scorpio: November 23 - November 29
Ophiuchus: November 29 - December 17
Sagittarius: December 17 - January 20

Well, the trolls with NASA SpacePlace note that the accuracy of the “horoscopes” will not change from the amendments to the precession. She was zero, and this will remain. Unfortunately, some of the population will not stop looking for magical advice for their lives. For example, 21% of UK residents read horoscopes “often” or “very often”, and 25% of respondents consider astrology as a “very scientific” discipline. Surprisingly, even in scientific journals are sometimes published scientific works devoted to astrology.