Tag Archives: Constellations

Identity Crisis

I have, apparently, been living a lie. My entire life, I thought I was an Aquarius, yet I have recently come to learn that my astronomical Sun sign is off by nearly a month. Because of the phenomenon of precession (the work of the gravitational pull and the conservation of angular momentum to correct the […] Continue reading

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Ancient Astronomers and the Zodiac

  We’ve learned that the zodiac constellations are connected to the position of the Sun as it moves along its path. The sun spends about a month closest to each of these constellations, or “in” the constellation, and then moves on to the next. Ancient Greek and Babylonian people groups named the constellations and defined …

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Ancient Astronomers and the Zodiac

  We’ve learned that the zodiac constellations are connected to the position of the Sun as it moves along its path. The sun spends about a month closest to each of these constellations, or “in” the constellation, and then moves on to the next. Ancient Greek and Babylonian people groups named the constellations and defined […] Continue reading

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Blog #2

The topic of zodiac signs and how they the constellations and the ecliptic is fascinating to me. Humans have recognized the appearance of certain constellations behind the sun throughout a large part of history. Of course, the true cause of the changing zodiac signs is that the earth’s position changes relative to the sun and […] Continue reading

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Name That Constellation

The Night Sky, showing the Milky Way, at La Silla Observatory in Chile. Source: Wikimedia Commons.   The constellations visible from the Western Hemisphere differ from those visible from the Southern Hemisphere. In English, we typically use names derived from Greek and Roman mythology for the constellations, referring to constellations such as Orion and Pleiades […] Continue reading

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What Does It Mean to Have a Zodiac Sign?

Lots of people are aware that they have a Zodiac sign – a symbol associated with the time of year …

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Want to know your real sign?

Cosmo magazine may be giving the cosmos the best PR around, thanks to the back of their magazine. Every Cosmopolitan has a section near the back dedicated to the astrological horizon- i.e., horoscopes. Whether we think it’s a sham or not, it’s fun to read about what the month will supposedly hold according to the […] Continue reading

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The Pleiades Myth

In Greek Mythology the pleiades are seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the nymph Pleione. They were said to be extremely beautiful and served as companions to the goddess Artemis. When their father was forced to carry the weight of the world for all eternity the great hunter Orion began to pursue them. Orion […] Continue reading

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Zodiac

The Zodiac was created about 2,000 years ago as a way to track time. Each month, the sun appears to pass through 1 of 12 constellations that are each tied to a sign (In 1930, the International Astronomical Union, actually defined 13 constellations that the Sun passes through, but one does not have a sign). […] Continue reading

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Ophiucus: The Thirteenth Zodiac?

Two years ago, an astronomer from Minnesota named Parke Kunkle informed the American public that not only  had the date ranges for each of the zodiac signs changed, but that a 13th Zodiac sign had been added called Ophiuchus. This became big news very quickly and elicited very heated responses from many astrologers. One astrologer […] Continue reading

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