Do you know your zodiac sign? You might want to check again. Experts say the stars have shifted, and with them, so have your fates. Use this link! You’ll be surprised.
Astrology has always sat uneasily between belief and skepticism. Dismissed by scientists as abstract and derided by critics as superstition, it has long been treated as little more than entertainment. Yet research reveals something undeniable: the night sky itself has changed, and the zodiac signs along with it.
In ancient times, astrologers determined zodiac signs by noting which constellation stood behind the sun at a given moment, according to The New York Times. But Earth has a wobble, technically a tilt, that shifts our view of the stars by one degree every 72 years. Over centuries, those degrees add up.
Consider the way that different stars served as the North Star throughout history. Right now, it is Polaris, steady and constant. But in ancient Egypt, the North Star was Thuban; during the Ice Age, it was Vega. Likewise, 3,000 years ago, the March equinox aligned with Aries. By 130 BCE, Greek philosophers had realized the sun had already slipped into Pisces. Today, it is still there, and in about 600 years, it will move into what scientists call the “Age of Aquarius.”
Western astrology, however, does not account for these shifts. It uses what is known as the “tropical” zodiac, which ties signs to the seasons rather than the stars. The Indian system, by contrast, uses a “sidereal” method, adjusting for Earth’s wobble so the signs line up with the actual constellations.
Even the twelve familiar signs are more arbitrary than they appear. The Babylonians once tracked seventeen constellations, later reduced to twelve for neatness. “They are not symmetrical in any way,” Stacy Palen, emeritus professor at Weber State University, told The New York Times. The sun lingers in Virgo twice as long as in Cancer.
And then there is the thirteenth sign: Ophiuchus. NASA has pointed out that the sun passes through this constellation for 18 days each year, longer than Scorpio, which only lasts seven. The Babylonians quietly dropped Ophiuchus to fit their twelve-month calendar, but astronomers argue it belongs on the chart.
Ophiuchus, from the Greek word for “serpent bearer,” depicts a man wrestling a snake. Those born under it are said to resemble Sagittarians: healers, seekers of knowledge, interpreters of dreams, and figures favored by authority. In myth, he was the healer of men, a bringer of light, destined perhaps for success.
So the next time you check your horoscope, remember that your sign may not be what you think it is. The constellations have shifted, the calendar has bent, and the stars you were born under might not be the same ones that guide you today. Whether you see this as proof of astrology’s flaws or its flexibility, the question lingers: if even the sky changes, why wouldn’t we?
