Why are all horoscopes wrong?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In January 2016, an article on ancient Babylonian astronomy was published on the NASA Space Place educational website. And when, a few months later, journalists tried to talk about the space agency's report, a commotion began on the network: they want to change the horoscope, since the zodiac signs should be 13. The RT correspondent figured out why astrology is not a science.

This is not the first time that there is a misunderstanding between astronomers and those who are closer to everyday astrology. In January 2011, Park Kunkle, a board member of an astronomical society and an astronomy lecturer at a local college, told the Star Tribune that the Earth's position relative to the Sun had changed dramatically over the past three thousand years. This means that horoscopes, which are based on the zodiac - a belt of 12 constellations along the visible path of the Sun, first understood as a kind of unity in Babylon, are incorrect.

In particular, the newspaper stated: "the astronomer declares that the system of signs of the zodiac should be changed and the 13th constellation Ophiuchus should be introduced." Judging by the comments, readers perceived this as the destruction of the foundations. "All my life I considered myself a Capricorn," wrote a 25-year-old New Yorker, "now I am a Sagittarius, but I do not feel like a Sagittarius at all."

As Kunkle later explained to the online science and technology magazine Gizmodo, in fact, the Star Tribune asked him for a few short comments on the topic of astronomy, and there was no question of astrology, in which he does not believe.

Two years later, NASA found itself in a similar situation. English-language glossy magazines Marie Claire, Cosmo and Glamor, referring to the agency, published a new diagram of the signs of the zodiac, including Ophiuchus, and stated that 86% of people do not know their real sign.

The next day, NASA spokesman Duane Brown explained to Gizmodo: "Our article is about how astrology is a relic of ancient history, which has nothing to do with astronomy, and how astronomers measure in the night sky." What prevented from correctly understanding the words and thoughts of NASA and Kunkle Park?

The methods and purposes of observing the stars in Mesopotamia, where the era of civilization began about 4 thousand years ago, was described, in particular, by the Dutch scientist Anton Pannekoek in his «Astronomy stories ».

The people of Babylon closely watched the celestial phenomena. The question involuntarily arises, why such accuracy is needed, because it exceeds the needs of agriculture, which depends more on the weather than on exact dates. However, in those days, agriculture was inseparable from religious ceremonies. For example, a harvest festival could be assigned to a specific date tied to the phases of the moon. In the divine services, negligence was not allowed; exact observance of the rituals associated with the calendar was required.

In Babylon, the visible path of the Sun (ecliptic) was divided into 12 equal sections of 30 degrees - each section had its own constellation and its own sign. In the II century A. D. in Alexandria, the astronomer Ptolemy updated the Babylonian system, creating one that was adopted by both astronomers and astrologers - especially since in those ancient times these areas were practically not divided.

Over time, however, they diverged further and further. Astronomy was engaged in the development of scientific knowledge about the Universe, and astrology has created a system of mystical teachings and practices that do not have a solid factual basis, although it is partially based on real knowledge.

Astrology remained popular among intellectuals and the general public until the beginning of the Enlightenment - that is, until the end of the 17th century. For example, the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary contains statistics on the number of astrological works published in different centuries. So, in the 15th century, 51 works were published, in the 17th century - 399, and in the 19th century (until 1880) - only 47.

The rapid development of science in the 17th-18th centuries drove astrology out of the area of interests of the enlightened public. But in the 20th century, despite the onset of the era of universal literacy, astrological literature again became in demand. Now, both in the West and in Russia, for the first time astrology has become as popular as in the 17th century. Moreover, astrologers continue to use Ptolemy's zodiac system - a system that does not provide for changes and does not take into account changes in the configuration of the starry sky.

In fact, it changes due to precession - a shift in the direction of the earth's axis under the influence of the attraction of the moon and the sun. Thanks to this phenomenon, the position of the constellations has changed since the Babylonians looked at them. And it's not just the aforementioned Ophiuchus: over the centuries the stars have shifted to the whole zodiacal sector - and, for example, a child, at the moment of birth of which the sun was in the constellation Aries, is "officially" considered to be born under the sign of Taurus.

From the point of view of astronomy, you can divide the visible path of the Sun into any number of parts, any method will be equally correct or equally incorrect. If we talk about constellations, then any astronomer will tell you that the constellations on the visible path of the Sun are really not 12, but 13. Moreover, this fact was officially recorded: in 1931, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), approving the boundaries between 88 constellations of both hemispheres, determined that the ecliptic line intersects the constellation Ophiuchus.

However, astrologers most often take as a basis for their calculations not constellations, but parts of the sky without reference to specific stars. And on this basis, they insist on the correctness of their horoscopes. Whether or not they are correct is still more a matter of faith than science.

Julia Troitskaya