The signs are not constellations!
End of article. Oh you’re expecting some more explanation? Ok, have it your way.
About once a year or so, an article make its rounds in social media saying that NASA has discovered a 13th sign. This sign is Ophiuchus, and is nestled between Scorpio and Sagittarius. This has mostly caused confusion with people not as knowledgeable with astrology, and has acted as a straw-man argument from sceptics to show how astrologers are clueless.
The truth of this argument has nothing to do with whether you believe in astrology. This is a misunderstanding of terms.
The Ecliptic
First we have to understand what the ecliptic is.
The ecliptic is the path of the Sun as it travels across the sky from our perspective. The rest of the planets and the Moon also travel along this path, although slightly above or below at times. In the background along the ecliptic, there is a band of stars. Some of these stars were grouped together into constellations. Here is where the confusion lies.
Constellations
Constellations are groupings of stars. The ancients gave them names, typically based on their culture’s mythology. In some cases, these constellations were grouped together to tell a story. They also act as a way to locatek individual stars within or near them. This locational use of constellations is still done today with astronomers as an easy shorthand.
Constellations vary in size and are irregularly shaped. Some constellations lie along the ecliptic, sometimes straddling it, sometimes only a small piece touches it, and others are far above or below the ecliptic.
Signs
Signs are 30-degree measured divisions of the ecliptic. Each sign is even and regular. Since the ecliptic is a circle, and if you divide the 360 degrees of the ecliptic circle by twelve, you get 30. This gives us 12 signs.
Signs Versus Stars
In the graphic below is a 16th century depiction of the Ptolemaic universe. There are differences between various astrologers on the number of spheres – some being added to account for precession of the equinoxes and so on. To generally summarize:
Above the Earth are spheres for each of the seven planets.
Above Saturn is the sphere of the stars.
Above the sphere of the stars is usually another sphere to account for the signs.
There may be other spheres, but all agree that Heaven (not necessarily the Christian one) is the outermost.
The signs are above the stars. You can see the stars and constellations. You cannot see the signs. Astrology, at least in part, is an expression of a philosophy. In this way, the signs are non-physical physical archetypes that dwell in the realm of the Forms as described by Plato and Aristotle (with differing opinions).
The Unfixed Stars, the Precession of the Equinoxes
The stars, from our perceived perspective appear to move as a united background behind the planets, rising and setting daily. However, over time, the stars appear to be slowly moving backwards, against the order of the zodiac. This is due to a phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes. It is caused by a slight wobble in the axis of the Earth, like a spinning top. This means that the spring equinox, while it used to happen when the Sun was somewhere in Aries, now happens in Pisces. This is the precise point that sceptics use to ridicule astrologers.
In reality, astrologers have noticed this for a very long time. Ptolemy wrote about it in the 2nd century, and the math accounting for precession was included in calculation tables. Today it is in every piece of astrology software.
The issue isn’t whether astrologers know or don’t know that the stars and zodiac don’t line up. It’s about how you measure the zodiac.
The Three Zodiacs
This issue with precession and the zodiac is handled in the main ways in astrology:
The Tropical Zodiac: This is the most popular in the West, and dates back to at least Ptolemy. This is a seasonally-based zodiac. The spring and autumn equinoxes always fall at 0 degrees Aries and Libra respectively, and the summer and winter solstices always fall on 0 degrees Cancer and Capricorn respectively. The main rationale is to allow the elemental natures of the signs to align with the seasons.
The Sidereal Zodiac: This is most popular in Indian astrology, but has some adherents in the West. This is based on precession. Typically, a point in the Aries sign is “pinned” to a particular star. This means that as precession moves backwards, so does the difference between Sidereal and Tropical astrology. One thing to keep in mind: there are different opinions about where the starting point of the Sidereal zodiac begins. These different opinions are called ayanamsas. In other words, the Sidereal zodiac doesn’t necessarily have a united consensus.
The Constellational Zodiac: This is the least popular among astrologers. This zodiac attempts to divide the ecliptic according to the approximate size of the constellations. For instance, Scorpio will be quite small, Libra quite large, and there will most likely be 13 signs. Again, opinions will vary here.
About Tropical and Sidereal Zodiacs:
Here is a hard truth: neither the Tropical or Sidereal zodiacs show exactly what is in the sky.
The reason for this goes back to my first statement that a sign is always 30 degrees and a constellation is irregular. To illustrate this, I made some colorful graphics. The one on the top-left shows the 12 signs. The one on the bottom-right shows the approximate number of degrees each constellation uses in the ecliptic. This isn’t even exactly correct because, since the constellations are irregular, it’s difficult to say sometimes how many degrees they cover. Some constellations overlap, bending over another one, or fitting into another one like a puzzle piece.
If you use 30 degree signs, they will be different than the sky. Period. Granted, Sidereal is slightly closer since it accounts for precession.
Why 12?
There are two reasons: one is astronomical, and the other is philosophical.
The astronomical answer is simple: there are 12 lunations in a year, each of which last just shy of 30 days.
The philosophical answer is more complicated: The ancients placed great importance on certain numbers. Certain numbers tend to reoccur: one, two, three, four, seven, ten, and twelve. These numbers are extremely important to astrology:
Twelve signs.
Three signs are assigned to each of the four elements.
Four signs are assigned to each of the three modes (cardinal, fixed, mutable).
There are six possible sextile aspects.
There are four possible square aspects.
There are three possible trine aspects.
There are two possible oppositional aspects.
All of this fits in a model of a twelvefold division. Adding a thirteenth essentially unbalances the system. Again, astrology has a non-physical and philosophical component, and this balance, in my opinion at least, is important.
Putting this together.
To summarize, it comes down to four points:
If you prefer the elements of the signs matching the seasons, choose the Tropical zodiac.
If you prefer the signs to account for precession, choose the Sidereal zodiac.
If you prefer the physical constellations, choose the Constellational zodiac.
If you’re a skeptic, all of these are bogus, but at least understand a zodiac as a way of dividing the ecliptic.
At its simplest, the signs are a measuring system. If we say Saturn is at 3 degrees Gemini, we are also saying it is at 64 degrees of the ecliptic. It is a shorthand, really not much different than the shorthand astronomers use today.
NASA has never proclaimed Ophiuchus as the 13th sign – or at least it doesn’t have the authority, any more than Home Depot has the authority to proclaim a yard now contains four feet.
Oh, and Ophichus wasn’t recently discovered either. This was part of Ptolemy’s star list. It does touch the ecliptic.
It is a bit of a chicken and the egg whether the signs were named after the constellations or vice versa. We just don’t know.