Expert: Philip Stahl - 12/14/2004

Question
Dear Mr Stahl,

   Thank you for your last response about the precession of the equinoxes. My next question was asked of one of the other experts who said the question was out of their expertise. I would like to know what is the motion of our Sun in regards to the Zodiac? I have been led to believe our Sun is transcribing a circle and that our declaration of being in one sign or another such as our now leaving the Age of Pisces and entering the Age of Aquarius is our looking across the circle as opposed to saying we are in the Age of Leo and entering the Age of Virgo which is where our Sun actually is located at this time.  

Answer
Hello.

First of all, it is important to recognize that the motion of the Sun alluded to is really only an apparent motion - not real - as seen for an observer on Earth. (Since the Earth is the actual moving object, going around the Sun in orbit) In particular, an apparent solar sky motion arises because of the precession of the equinoxes and the Earth's real motion around the Sun.

The whole precession period for the Earth requires about 25,800 years to go through one complete cycle.  

Because the Earth's polar axis points at different areas of the sky over this time, it means that there is also a continual change in the position of the equinoxes. (These are the points in the sky where the Sun is located on the first day of Spring: March 20 or 21 for the Vernal Equinox, or the first day of autumn: September 22 or 23 for the Autumnal Equinox).

Geometrically speaking, the first of these corresponds to the point in the sky where the celestial equator intersects the *apparent path* of the Sun moving northward along the ecliptic, and the second corresponds to the point where the celestial equator intersects the Sun's apparent path moving *southward*.

The Vernal Equinox is called the "first point of Aries" by astrologers, since it was originally in that sign two thousand years ago.   The problem is that the Vernal Equinox no longer is located in Aries, but in the adjacent constellation/sign: Pisces!  In the two thousand years since the Sun signs were devised, the Earth's axis has precessed out of the original alignment, and with it the equinoxes!  

This means that each of the other eleven so-called Sun signs used in horoscopes is out by the same amount: one entire Sun sign.  For consistency, all present day birthdays need to be re-calibrated to the preceding sign.  So if your birthday is July 6, like mine, you are no longer a Cancer but a Gemini!  If it is October 4, you are no longer a Libra, but the sign just before, Virgo!  And so on for each sign of the zodiac, displaced by a full 30 degrees.   This means that the entire underpinning of zodiac signs, and their descriptions according to Astrology, is in error!   

This means, of course, it will take nearly another 2,000 years for an additional equal displacement, to bring the Sun - as seen from Earth as it moves in its orbit - into the constellation Aquarius.

Your reference to the 180 degree *opposite* signs (e.g. Leo, Virgo) is, in reality a reference to the Earth's position as seen *from the SUN* along the Zodiac, not the Sun's (apparent position)as seen from the Earth as it (Sun) "moves" along the Ecliptic. (In quote marks, because in reality it is *the Earth* doing the moving, round the Sun in its orbit!)

But since the Astrologers specifically called these "Sun signs" (e.g. where the apparent Sun is located, not the Earth seen from the Sun) it isn't quite cricket to alter the directions by 180 degrees and believe them to be more "authentic".

Finally, one last point: the regions of the sky designated as Zodiac "signs"  by the astrologers are not totally coincident with the regions of the sky (by the same name) designated as CONSTELLATIONS by astronomers. This is an important point, since the two are often mixed up causing no end of confusion.

What all this plausibly shows, of course, is that there is really no serious scientific basis to astrology.