Why zodiac signs are accurate

You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.

Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.

Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is one of your major goals in life. The average rating that students gave this assessment was 4. A similar experiment was carried out, ironically, by astrologer Michael Gauquelin. To top it off, the horoscope he gave out was that of a local mass murderer, Dr. Petiot, who had admitted during his trial that he had killed 63 people. Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops.

More than 40, subscribers can't be wrong. Gauquelin set out to scientifically analyze astrology, and his results came out strongly against his profession. Many people believe in astrology, and when they read their horoscope and follow its advice, they feel better. Astrology is glorifying, it gives a sense of communion with the cosmos, and it promises to bring a bit of magic into your day to day life. Andrei's background is in geophysics, and he's been fascinated by it ever since he was a child.

Feeling that there is a gap between scientists and the general audience, he started ZME Science -- and the results are what you see today. Vernal and autumnal equinoxes. We are familiar with the Earth's equator because of our knowledge of geography.

If we could extend the earth's equator into space so that it could be viewed against the background of stars, we would be able to see what in astronomy is called the celestial equator. Because the Earth's axis of rotation is tilted with respect to the ecliptic by The two points in the sky where these two planes cross are called the equinoxes.

We call the vernal equinox the intersection point where the Sun, in its apparent motion against the background stars along the ecliptic, crosses the celestial equator from south to north, usually occurring around March 21 st. Similarly, we call the autumnal equinox the intersection point where the Sun, in its apparent motion against the background stars along the ecliptic, crosses the celestial equator from north to south, usually occurring around September 21 st.

The first day of Spring then corresponds to the vernal equinox and the first day of Fall corresponds to the autumnal equinox. During the time of the equinoxes, we on the Earth experience twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night. The precession of the equinox. Figure 4 The precession of the Earth around its axis.

The Earth's rotation on its axis has caused the Earth's shape to diverge from a sphere, and has caused the Earth's equatorial regions to bulge out. Because the Earth's equator is tilted with respect to the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun, the Earth's equatorial bulge is also tilted with respect to the plane along which the Sun and Moon travel.

The Moon and the Sun exert a gravitational drag on the Earth's equatorial bulge, trying to pull the Earth's equatorial region to be aligned with the ecliptic plane.

This pull, along with the rotational motion of the Earth on its axis, the revolution of the Earth around the Sun, and the revolution of the Moon about the Earth, cause the Earth to wobble about its axis of rotation, similar to the motion of a spinning top. This motion is called precession. It is the wobbling of the equatorial plane that causes the line of the intersection of the equatorial and ecliptic planes to move.

As mentioned above, the intersection of these two planes determine where on the zodiac our spring and fall equinoxes occur. This line of intersection is said to precess or move around the zodiac because of the wobble. Figure 5 Circular path that the north equatorial pole describes due to the precession of the Earth. Figure 4 shows a schematic of the Earth's precession, this effect gradually changes where on the zodiac the equinox points fall. This precession means that the spring equinox was just entering Pisces years ago and it is about to enter the constellation of Aquarius that is the reason why many astrologers say that we are going to start the Aquarius epoch.

An extension of the Earth's axis out into space traces out a conical figure with a time cycle or period of 26, years. The Earth's precession implies that although Polaris is currently the star above our north pole, in about 13, years Vega will become our north star; only after yet another 13, years, will the north pole will once again point towards Polaris, as shown in Figure 5.

Therefore, because of the Earth's precession, the constellation which is behind the Sun nowadays is actually different from the one predicted by astrologers. Ophiuchus, the 13 th constellation of the zodiac. The constellations of the zodiac at the present. Unlike the zodiac signs in astrology, the astronomical constellations vary widely in size.

If we think of the sky as a great sphere, the areas that different constellations cover can be drawn fairly accurately. Waxman at olivia. An image of the sun surrounded by a calendar showing seasons and the symbols of the zodiac that appear on the title page of an almanac written by Nathanael Low, M.

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