Star-signs change... apparently.

Know what Star-sign you were born under?...

You sure about that?

People still read those things?

Still the same for me.

I thought all of geekdom knew about this phenomenon. That'll teach me to make assumptions.

The thing I found interesting about that article wasn't so much the sun-against-stars slippage as the fact that Ophiucus the Serpent-Bearer was listed as a zodiacal constellation in their "updated" list. It is indeed located close to the zodiacal belt, but I've never seen it listed as part of the zodiac before. After all, it's logical to divide an earth year into twelve, or four (as in at least one Chinese rendering of the zodiacal constellations), or six, as in some ancient calendars I can't recall offhand, but a division into thirteen gives a division of the year into segments that don't bear any clear relationship to the lunar month (the source of the whole month/year thing in the first place).

Speaking of changes to zodiacal constellations, at one time (early Roman Republic or earlier), the classical zodiac counted Libra as part of Scorpio, forming the scorpion's claws, though it's thought that even earlier Western and Near Eastern peoples had some other constellation in the Libra "slot." Might this be the same kind of thinking that brought in Ophiucus? It's in the same general area.

So some irrelevant rubbish has been replaced with some slightly different irrelevant rubbish?

What sane person would care?

CNN said the new list only applies to eastern Astrology, western Astrology is based on the seasons and will never change, our signs didn't change.

Unless there's a frickin' star-sign of a frickin' shark with a frickin' laser beam on its head I'm frickin' not interested.

v.v

Chinese Astrology is based on the year you are born and is just cyclical. If you are born in x year then you are born under the sign of x.

Western Astrology is based on the Zodiac...sorta... which is the blah blah blah, which none of you care about... and it is true that that now has 13 signs in it, but what we commonly refer to as Astrology ignores that... or a least it has for the last several hundred years... and uses the Astrological works of Nostradamus, because well, it's easier to just look at what some dead guy wrote rather than do the math to do it correctly according to how your supposed to do it.

Alot of Astrologers and Astronomers know this. They don't care. And the general public mostly doesn't..and they don't care either.

It's been interesting watching this meme move around the world. It showed up on broadcast news last night, too. It's complete rubbish, but it has spread like wildfire.

What happened is that a Chicago paper interviewed an astronomer, and that astronomer mentioned in passing that the astrological signs have changed in the last 10,000 years. That brought out the headline, "Astronomer says star-chart is changing", which was condensed (because the news condenses everything) into, "Scientists change astrological signs", and once they realized *that* made no sense, it's now "Your sign has changed."

Some notes:
1. Scientists don't give a dram about astrology. Astrologers are not being 'forced' to change their signs and symbols.
2. The 'change' in the astrological signs has taken place slowly over the past 10,000 years (since the Babylonians first wrote about them).
3. No recent change has been made to the zodiac, by either people or the stars.
4. Ophiuchus always existed. It has been a equatorial constellation as long as any of the others. It was ignored by the people who made up the zodiac, probably because they wanted 12 signs to match the number of months.

Nothing has changed. Nothing is going to change, except over millenia or possibly in human superstitions. The news just latched onto some cool bit of trivia that a lot of people always knew.

Yes, there was a ridiculous amount of crying ending up on my Facebook wall because of this change that wasn't really a change. Primarily out of the female contingent.

As I stated on my status last night:

<--- doesn't care if his zodiac sign changed.

Well, the original zodiac and the pseudo-religious horoscopes that developed from it began from astrological observation.

That astrological observation wasn't that exact to begin with, and because of precession, the observed solar movement against the stars has changed over time.

But the zodiacal horoscopes did not upgrade their astrological information and are clearly out of sync with the current reality they purport to be based on. Which is not a surprise to anyone with... you know... intelligence.

The real problem is the number of unintelligent people who still 'believe' in horoscopes. As if two babies born in the same place and the same time are fated to have the same personalities and parallel experiences all their lives because of the influence of the sun and stars passing through specific constellation of stars purported to have a 'meaning' because they vaguely look like stuff, such as a lion or fish.

But, these are the same people who believe in UFOs, government conspiracies, and a right to unlimited and perfect government services without having to pay for it in taxes.

That unleashed chart is hilarious but I don't understand why you have 24 signs. If that catches on with the general public you all will have to write twice as many horoscopes each day.

There aren't many manufacturers left in the US that cast pewter, but I wonder if any of them are considering doing a run of this new sign. If you own a bead store and you carry pewter or sterling silver charms you'd be an idiot not to stock both the Chinese and western zodiac.

I could see an online store making their money back from buying a run of the new sign, a brick and mortar store on the other hand has more important things to spend their money on.

Personally I hope this story just fads away. Astrology fans are worse then Scifi fans, they rank up there with hardcore football and MMA fans for being able to carry on idiotic conversations.

in the end we all will die....so really the whole astorological thing is bunk

Astrology is, of course, bunk. However...


Having seen the Unleashed Zodiac, I've never been happier that my birthday is 2nd September. With an explosion.

While Ophiucus has always existed it has not always been part of the Zodiac. I forget how long it takes for one to leave/come back, but there have been few and more in the Zodiac and the one that Astrologers use is from the 1500s.


Also...wen you talk about astrology/astronomy you have to understand until fairly recently they were the same thing and the difference between them is something like only a few hundred years which is why both groups use the Zodiac and a number of other terms... and why Astrologers were much more revered back a few hundred years ago.

I'm a Sagittarius now? But I liked being a Capricorn!

Hmm. So not only does this not effect me at all (not being an astrology nut) but only one member of my family and I'm apparently born under the sign of the Terminator.

Yay?

From Scorpio to Libra... interesting. Very interesting indeed.

Still a Leo, but according to those other signs I'm a Leo with a Death Star. Rawr!

Well the 'western' calendar at one time consisted of 13 months, each of 28 days (matching the moon phases) and with a whole week of holidays at the beginning/end. That is likely where the 13 zodiacal symbols came from.
If my memory serves right it wasn't until the invention of the Julian calendar that we went with the 12 months with varying number of days. And why if February the only month with only 28 (sometimes 29) days?!

The position of the midwife at delivery exerts more (gravitational) influence on a baby than the position of any celestial body, bar the earth moon and sun.

Who accounts for the OB/GYn being ascending in Pisces ? eh ?