Everyone has a zodiac sign based on his/her birthday which is probably wrong

Do you want to put in trouble your friends with one simple question? Well, follow me reading this article and i will explain how.

(example) Your friend tells "My sign is Capricorn"...

Your reply

What does it mean? 

Yes, few people can explain what really means that his zodiac sign is one or another one. Here the astronomical explanation

Having a certain zodiac sign means that, at the time of your birth, the Sun was in a certain constellation

So, first we start analyzing just the astronomical factor: celestial sky has 88 constellation. 13 of them are on the Zodiac line, that is a "belt" extended 9 degrees each side of the Ecliptic line. The Ecliptic line is the apparent motion of the Sun in the sky during an entire year. Obviously, this motion passes through some constellation, exactly the zodiacal constellation. So...

Why are there only 12 and not 13?

Because of mistaken calendar: the first explanation of the Zodiac becomes from Greek calendar, approximately in 2000 B.C. That calendar is similar to ours, but it's not the same. Greek scientists made a Zodiac calendar based on just 12 signs with a more or less equal period for each one based on the observation of celestial bodies motions (Sun, Moon and known planets), but, under an astronomical profile, these are 2 big mistakes! (We can not consider Greeks as guilty, they lived in 2000 B.C.!)

1) Nowadays we know that Sun motion passes through 13 constellation: the 13th is Ophiucus ("man grasping a snake")

2) Constellations have different extensions: Cancer is much smaller than Gemini, for examples, and so Aries than Acquarius. This means that the Sun passes through constellations with different periods: for example, a longer period spent in Gemini, shorter one in Cancer.

How do we resolve this problem?

You need a planetarium, a software replicating celestial sky in every moment. One of the most famous is Stellarium, absolutely free-licensed. Put your precise birthday (day, month and year.. hours and minutes are not important) and...magic! You would realize that you have always believed your sign was Gemini... and then it's Taurus! (Very funny).

Let's make a practice example: a person born on 5th March 1992. According to Zodiac, his sign is Pisces... but

You can see the "Costellazione" ("Constellation") is AQR... AQUARIUS!!  

PS: people born approximately between the 30th of November and 11th of December... probably have Ophiucus as Zodiacal sign

See next time