Lifestyle
Your Zodiac Sign Is 2,000 Years Out of Date
Whether you care about horoscopes or not, you probably know your zodiac sign. You’ve probably known it for most of your life.
Zodiac signs were originally based on the stars. But over thousands of years, our view of the stars has shifted. That means, if you account for this shift, your sign might not be what you think.
Below, we’ll tell you what it would be instead.
There are three reasons the zodiac signs no longer line up with the constellations they’re named after.
1. Earth’s wobble
The Earth wobbles like a top. A spinning top starts to wobble soon after it is set into motion. The Earth does the same thing, only more slowly.
It takes 26,000 years for the North pole to trace out a complete circle in the sky, pointing at different stars along the way. Scientists call this wobbling motion axial precession.
This wobble means that our view of the stars shifts by one degree every 72 years. Over centuries, this difference builds up.
And it’s not just the Northern stars that shift in our view because of Earth’s wobble, but all stars — including the zodiac constellations.
Take the spring equinox, usually around March 20, the first day of spring in the Northern hemisphere (and the start of the zodiac calendar in Western astrology).
This shift in our view of the stars was discovered by Hipparchus over 2,000 years ago. Since you can’t see stars during the day, he waited for a lunar eclipse — when the moon is directly opposite the sun — and used the moon’s position to work out where the sun was.
By comparing his measurement with earlier ones, he found that our view of the stars shifts by about one degree per century — not too far from modern measurements.
Today, Western astrology uses the tropical zodiac system, which is based on the positions of the stars more or less as they would have appeared to Hipparchus, and not as they appear today.
That means that the zodiac signs familiar to Americans are in sync not with the stars, but with the seasons: Aries starts on the first day of spring, even though the sun is now in front of Pisces then.
In contrast, the Indian system of astrology uses the sidereal zodiac, which accounts for Earth’s wobble and aligns zodiac signs to the stars.
While these two systems were initially aligned, they have been drifting apart ever since. Western astrologers are well aware of this mismatch, but they don’t see a problem with basing the signs on the stars as they were two millennia ago.
“Astrologers using the tropical zodiac are just using what they consider to be an equally valid system,” said Dorian Greenbaum, a historian of astrology who teaches at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
2. Constellations differ in size
The zodiac signs were created around 2,500 years ago by the Babylonians.
Their star catalogs listed at least 17 zodiac constellations. But they eventually simplified these into the 12 zodiac constellations we know today, each 30 degrees wide, as if slicing the sky into 12 equal slices.
But constellations aren’t really the same size. In 1928, astronomers divided the sky into 88 officially recognized constellations, each one shaped like its own puzzle piece.
Official constellations along the sun’s annual path
“They are not nice equal pieces,” said Stacy Palen, emeritus professor at Weber State University. “They’re like jagged shapes that are not symmetric in any way.”
Based on these boundaries, the sun spends more than twice as much time in front of Virgo as in front of Cancer. And it spends only a week in front of Scorpio — if you include Ophiuchus, that is.
Which brings us to the last reason the 12 signs don’t align with the zodiac constellations.
3. Ophiuchus
Ophiuchus is the 13th constellation along the sun’s path, according to astronomers. (It even has its own emoji: ⛎.) Ophiuchus means “serpent bearer” in Ancient Greek, and is usually depicted as a man holding a snake. If you squint, you can kind of see why.
So for people born during the sign of Scorpio 2,000 years ago, Ophiuchus was more likely behind the sun on their birthday. (And because of Earth’s wobble, most Sagittarians today were also born when Ophiuchus was behind the sun.)
We don’t really know why the Babylonians left out Ophiuchus from their zodiac signs. They may have originally had a different name for it. But historians believe that when Babylonians simplified their zodiac system, they wanted the 12 zodiac signs to match the 12 months of their calendar. Ophiuchus didn’t make the cut.
A ‘shape-shifter’
Astronomy and astrology have little in common today, and there’s no scientific basis to the idea that the movements of the stars and planets influence our future or our personalities. But the two disciplines started out as the same thing thousands of years ago.
“If you were an astronomer, you were also an astrologer,” Professor Greenbaum said.
The Babylonians viewed the planets as gods, and planetary motions as omens that could foretell the fortunes of kings and kingdoms. This motivated them to look for patterns in the sky.
Even by the 17th century, many astronomers were also practising astrologers. Johannes Kepler, who discovered how planets move in ellipses, probably learned astrology at college, and created horoscopes for friends and patrons. Galileo practiced astrology and sold horoscopes on the side.
“Their side hustle was to cast horoscopes for their rich patrons because that paid the bills,” said Tyler Nordgren, an astronomer and author.
Eventually, during the Enlightenment, astrology was divorced from astronomy and was no longer considered a legitimate science, Professor Greenbaum said.
“It was kicked out of the universities,” he said. “But there were still practitioners.”
Today, we understand the laws governing the motions of planets and stars well enough to send spacecraft to distant worlds, detect gravitational waves and take pictures of a black hole. At the same time, over a quarter of Americans believe that the positions of the stars and planets can affect their lives.
So why has belief in astrology endured, while other methods of divination like ornithomancy (finding omens in the behavior of birds) or tyromancy (fortune telling with a block of cheese) have drifted into obscurity?
“Astrology is a shape-shifter,” Professor Greenbaum said. “Astrology goes along with whatever’s in vogue and manages to survive.”
Because those constellations are behind the sun, they’re in the daytime sky, and so you can’t actually see them on those dates. You’ll need to wait until they’re in the night sky, about six months from the date you entered.
How we found your sign
Though the astrological zodiac calendar is well known, there are small ways ours may differ from other sources. To calculate your astrological zodiac sign, we divided the sun’s annual path across the sky (known as the ecliptic) into 12 equal divisions of 30 degrees, beginning with the March equinox, which marks the beginning of Aries. This is the tropical zodiac system, in which zodiac signs are aligned to the seasons.
To calculate the astronomical zodiac constellation behind the sun, we used the Astronomy Engine software library to locate the sun on every day of the year and determine the astronomical constellation behind it.
We based our zodiac calculations on the current year, and on the position of the sun at noon UTC every day. A more accurate calculation of your sign would involve knowing the exact time and year of your birth, and as a result our calculations may be off by a day or so. This primarily affects people whose birthdays are on the cusp between two signs, or between two constellations.
To create the 3D illustrations of the stars, we used a repository of celestial data for the 88 official constellations, and oriented these constellations based on Earth’s view of the stars on a given date.
The astronomical calculations account for precession (the slow wobble in Earth’s axis of rotation), nutation (a slight wiggle in the tilt of Earth’s axis), and the gradual drift of Earth’s elliptical orbit.
Our star maps do not account for the movement of individual stars through space, relative to each other, known as proper motion. This movement is typically so slow as to be minimal over centuries, but the positions of some of the stars in the Northern sky during the last ice age may be in slightly different locations than shown.
In our visualizations, we used the familiar names Scorpio and Capricorn instead of the official names for those constellations: Scorpius and Capricornus. The seasons we describe are for the Northern hemisphere. The Earth’s orbit around the sun is actually counterclockwise when viewed from above; we show it orbiting clockwise for illustrative purposes. The Earth and the sun are not to scale.
Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
A federal judge has blocked President Trump from adding his name to the Kennedy Center, saying that the Washington, D.C. arts complex was named for the late president John F. Kennedy. In a ruling on Friday, the judge also temporarily blocked the administration from closing the Kennedy Center for a planned two-year renovation that was slated to begin in July.
U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper wrote in his ruling that: “The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
A Kennedy Center spokesperson told NPR in an email Friday afternoon that it will appeal the decision. Roma Daravi, vice president of public relations for the complex, wrote: “We will review the decision carefully though the reality remains — the Center requires an urgent and significant restoration – a truth that even the plaintiff acknowledges. With $257 million secured by President Trump and approved by Congress, the resources are in place and we remain committed to pursuing every lawful avenue to ensure the Trump Kennedy Center is restored as a national cultural landmark for all Americans to enjoy.”
NPR has requested comment from the White House, but did not receive an immediate reply.
As part of his ruling, Judge Cooper ordered that all signage and online materials referring to the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” the “Trump Kennedy Center,” or anything similar must be removed within 14 days.
The judge also blocked, for now, plans to close the Kennedy Center for two years of renovations. Trump and the center’s current voting board members – all of whom were selected by the president, who also became chairman of the center last year – had planned to start the renovations in early July, just after the 250th anniversary celebrations. In his 94-page ruling, Judge Cooper called the renovation plans “murky,” and wrote: “None of the board members had sufficient information in advance of the March 16 meeting to make a well-considered decision to close the center.” The center has been winding down its programming and has already dismissed most of its programming staff.
Referring to a Truth Social post written by President Trump in February, the judge also wrote: “There was no ‘one year review of the Trump Kennedy Center, that has taken place with Contractors, Musical Experts, Art Institutions, and other Advisors and Consultants, deciding between’ complete and partial closure, as President Trump claimed.”
Cooper’s ruling resulted from a lawsuit filed in March by Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center board whose voting rights there were stripped last year.
The ruling does not prevent the Kennedy Center’s board from a future closure, but the judge said that it should do so only after the board has “sufficient information to make a considered, independent decision, taking account of its obligation to both maintain and operate a premiere arts venue and its solemn duty to memorialize a fallen President.”
Three years after my second divorce, with the help of a dating app, I went on 53 first dates in one summer. Fifty-three times, I put on my first-date uniform (nice but not trying too hard), flat-ironed my hair and texted my date itinerary to my friend Karen to make it easier for the FBI to track my whereabouts just in case this was the internet date that finally went wrong.
I had a system. The system involved a spreadsheet. I kept track of what I wore and what stories we shared to avoid repeating myself in case there was a second or third date. There were exploratory follow-up dates, but it usually only took one to know.
The coffees and lunches and dinners of that season flicker in my mind like a rom-com video montage. There were some average dates, plenty of nice-guy, zero-chemistry dates, but a few stand out.
Here are the notables.
There was the extremely tall, minor league baseball player I met at BJ’s in Burbank. He said no more than four words to me the entire meal, but managed to chat up our waitress. I believe he walked me to my car and went back for her number.
The quiet and irritable TV editor I met at Guelaguetza on Olympic Boulevard. We ordered the chicken mole and chapulines. During the meal, he had a panic attack and excused himself to call his therapist. He actually told me this.
The experimental-video director with the white faux hawk I met at Go Get Em Tiger in East Hollywood. He spent the date in an hourlong monologue about his ex-wife Julia, stopping only to show me many, many photos of Julia.
A young man, originally from Phoenix, asked to meet at Soot Bull Jip on 8th Street. A struggling writer-actor-production assistant, he confided that he had looked up my name on Internet Movie Database and noticed that I was a producer. He then proceeded to pitch me an animated children’s show about singing giraffes. He also asked for a ride to Vons. I declined both.
The screenwriter I met at République who, based on his startling non-resemblance to his photo, had obviously posted a picture of someone else on his profile. He brought me three mixed CDs of music based on what he “knew” I would like. It was all Radiohead and Elliott Smith. I adjusted my dating profile because I was apparently coming off as depressed.
There was the nervous and uptight English tutor, with a script in turn-around and a famous roommate, that I met at a Starbucks in Koreatown. This guy corrected my grammar within the first five minutes of our introduction. Then, he proceeded to inform me that rather than be put off by this, I should be grateful for the new information so I could fix my error and not appear to be uneducated.
The trendy, bearded sports photographer I met for a late-night dinner at Fred 62 in Los Feliz. I had high hopes for this guy, and we made plans for a second date. But then things started unraveling once we realized I had already dated his younger brother.
There was also the suave (Hand kiss? Really?) and extremely tan French tennis pro I crossed La Cienega Boulevard for and met for lunch at Thai Vegan in Santa Monica. He was on a nonstop series of calls on his cellphone during the entire meal and then asked for a second date. I said, “Non, merci.”
When describing these guys to Karen, I used their identifying traits to label them. (Stalker Creep. Dude Looks Like a Lady. Mom Jeans Guy.) Like an FNG in Vietnam, it was better not to learn their names.
Due to a story he had shared with me via email, date No. 53 was identified as Naked Drummer. I tried to reserve judgment. Before Naked Drummer came to meet me for our first date, he called at the last minute and said the following:
“I want to recap. I just turned 30. I am currently living with my mother. I play guitar in an alternative folk band. I have a semi-crappy temp job at Disney with no benefits. I drive a green ’97 Plymouth Grand Voyager minivan that smells like weed. If you would like to change your mind about this whole dinner thing, now is your chance.” He described himself as tall, dark and tall.
For some reason, I broke many of my first date “safety rules” with Naked Drummer. I gave him my address. I let him pick me up. When he came to get me, I let him into my apartment. We went for dinner at Noshi Sushi on Beverly Boulevard. None of that is prudent behavior, and I do not recommend any of it except the chu toro.
Naked Drummer was a funny, smart, nice Jewish boy who had been touring in bands in that Grand Voyager since college graduation. On the first date, we bonded over takuwan rolls and our histories as teenage goths. My goth uniform included black Maybelline eyeliner I used a lighter to heat the tip with before application. His goth uniform included an olive-green trench coat he borrowed from his mom. We were a match made in Joy Division heaven. He confided he was an Insane Clown Posse Juggalo, I intimated I was in the Kiss Army. (We were both lying about those last two.)
Reader, I married him.
The author is a former writer, director and producer for television. She and Mr. Rosenberg live in South Pasadena. She’s on Instagram: @smacksy.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
Lifestyle
Poppy Liu wants to remind you how revolutionary I Love Boosters is : Bullseye with Jesse Thorn
I Love Boosters starts like a fun heist movie. There’s a gang of cool ladies from the Bay Area who steal clothes from high-end designers and sell them at a steep discount to their friends and neighbors. But I Love Boosters is also a Boots Riley movie. The film is surreal and bombastic, branching out in a thousand directions and traversing a dozen genres. So it can’t really stay a heist movie.
Poppy Liu drives that change more than pretty much any other character in the film. She plays Jianhu, a garment worker in China who joins the gang and brings with her a bonkers new wrinkle to the story. It’s a role Poppy was made for. She’s made her career playing confident, somewhat unhinged weirdos. She was cast in a lead role in the 2019 sitcom Sunnyside, had other parts on Better Call Saul, The After Party, and Hacks.
Liu joins us to talk about starring in I Love Boosters and the message that she hopes audiences take away from the film. She also chats with us about her upbringing in Minnesota, how she got into comedy acting, her role on Hacks, and much more.
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