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13 Zodiac Signs?

 

Perhaps you've heard that NASA has "done the math" and decided that there are 13 zodiac signs, instead of 12. Every so often, newspapers, astronomers, and everyone except astrologers put forth this idea of 13 signs. Lest you be concerned that your sun sign is actually finicky Virgo instead of harmonious Libra, check out these wonderful articles, some of the best we've seen, that will allay your fears about a change in zodiac sign.

Understanding the Zodiac (and why there REALLY are 12 zodiac signs, not 13)
Ophiuchus puts his foot in it but it's Cox who sticks the boot in
Is Ophiuchus the 13th Zodiac Sign
NASA Changes Zodiac Signs? Astrologers Respond
Did My Star Sign Change? Why Ophiucus is NOT The New Zodiac Sign

Take a look at Deborah Houlding's letter to NASA on Facebook, below:

Deborah Houlding
September 23 at 6:38am

NASA's announcement is also designed to keep the public confused and misinformed IMO. I have sent a letter of complaint to their public relations department today which reads as follows:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I have just been directed to your page http://nasa.tumblr.com/post/150688852794/zodiac - Constellations and the Calendar

As I am involved in ongoing complaints about the misleading information broadcast about this issue by media authorities in the UK, I would like to draw your attention to a couple of the remarks you have on that page which show incorrect information. I would be grateful if you could forward this email to the appropriate person responsible for that page content, and I would also very much appreciate receiving a response to these two points so that I can help bring clarification to a topic that has reached a ridiculous proportion of public misunderstanding.

Your page stresses a remark which has been stated twice by yourselves, and so has been reproduced by others in a way that generates even more confusion; i.e., it begins and ends with the remark:

"we didn’t change any zodiac signs…we just did the math."

This remark adds to the current widespread confusion, by giving the false impression that NASA is responsible for some newly realised information, or that someone at NASA has been responsible for working out the ongoing cycle of divergence between the regions of the ecliptic divided into 12 zodiac signs and the constellations that lie behind them.

Of course this is not the case - the math was worked out and made perfect many centuries ago. The development of the zodiac was a spectacular historical astronomical feat, which brought huge scientific advances to the civilisations that utilised it; and its principles were all based upon astute astronomical reasoning. Since your page concerns itself with the calendar, it is a pity it gives no credence to the calendrical and astronomical significance of the zodiac, which utterly predominated astronomical knowledge for nearly two thousand years. It would have been good if NASA had helped to explain that ancient astronomers understood precession, and how this requires the zodiac to cycle against the background constellations, in order for the zodiac to remain in synch with the seasons and the calendar. You could have also explained how even ancient astronomers were careful to stress that the equally divided zodiac signs must not be confused with the irregular sized constellations that bear their names. However, the important issue here is that NASA should NOT be giving the false impression that it has just done something that has worked out, discovered or resolved an astronomical problem. Nor should it give the impression that precession causes any kind of problem for the demarcation of the zodiac divisions, since precession is the reason why the zodiac was developed in the way that it was, to offer a more reliable, precise, mathematically correct and calendrically obliging system of astronomical reference. The fact that astrologers attach symbolic significance to the zodiac, should not be a matter of significance to NASA - and it should certainly not become a reason for NASA to obfuscate known knowledge of how important the zodiac has been in the history of astronomy, in a way that suggests that the zodiac has never held any kind of scientific value.

Your page also states "But even according to the Babylonians’ own ancient stories, there were 13 constellations in the zodiac. So they picked one, Ophiuchus, to leave out. Even then, some of the chosen 12 didn’t fit neatly into their assigned slice of the pie and crossed over into the next one."

This is a another incorrect remark, which only serves to perpetuate the silly media stories which suggest that the zodiac ought to have 13 signs for a reason that has no historical veracity. The zodiac is known to have been used and employed by the Babylonians at a time that they recognised 18 star constellations in the region of the ecliptic, not 13, which was an adoption made by much later Greek astronomers, at a time when the 12 sign zodiac had become firmly established as the principal system of both astronomical measurement and astrological guidance.

I would very much appreciate your attention to these matters, and hope that, at the very least, you will do what is necessary to remove this highly misleading and historically incorrect information from your web page.

Yours sincerely

Deborah Houlding

PS - My own article on what the zodiac is currently and historically, why it is differentiated from the constellations, and how the media has misreported the issue in a way that generates endless public misunderstanding, is published online at http://www.skyscript.co.uk/zodiac.html - ‘Understanding the Zodiac, and why there REALLY are 12 zodiac signs, not 13!’ It is fully referenced and the footnotes given there provide the sources required to support the comments I have made above. I would, of course, be happy to provide fuller and more convincing academic and historical references on this matter if you are in any way uncertain about the points that I have made here.