Astrology Zodiac Guide

Astrology is an art which has consequences in the lives of countless people

What is the zodiac?

You might associate the word zodiac with astrology, but it has an honored place in astronomy, too. It’s defined by the annual path of the sun across our sky.

The zodiac, the 12 signs listed in a horoscope, is closely tied to how the Earth moves through the heavens. The signs are derived from the constellations that mark out the path on which the sun appears to travel over the course of a year. You might think that dates in a horoscope correspond to when the sun passes through each constellation.

But they don’t, much of the time because astrology and astronomy are different systems. Plus, a closer examination of the motion of the Earth, the sun, and the stars shows the zodiac to be more intricate than you might imagine!

As Earth orbits the sun, the sun appears to pass in front of different constellations. Much like the moon appears in a slightly different place in the sky each night, the location of the sun relative to distant background stars drifts in an easterly direction from day to day. It’s not that the sun is actually moving. Its motion is entirely an illusion, caused by Earth’s own motion around our star.

The Babylonians are generally credited with the birth of astrology. Their astrological charts enabled them to predict the recurrence of seasons and certain celestial events. So in the beginning and for more than 2,000 years, astrology and astronomy were the same science.

Babylonian astrology was introduced to the Greeks early in the 4th century B.C. and, through the studies of Plato, Aristotle, and others, astrology came to be highly regarded as a science. It was soon embraced by the Romans (the Roman names for the zodiacal signs are still used today).

While earliest astrology was used to bring a sense of order out of apparent chaos, it was soon utilized to predict weather patterns, primarily for agricultural purposes. It was eventually broadened to include forecasts of natural disasters and war and other events in the course of human affairs.

The Zodiac

The zodiac (which is derived from the Greek word meaning "circle of animals") is believed to have developed in ancient Egypt and later adopted by the Babylonians. Early astrologers knew it took 12 lunar cycles (i.e., months) for the sun to return to its original position.

They then identified 12 constellations that they observed were linked to the progression of the seasons and assigned them names of certain animals and persons (in Babylonia, for example, the rainy season was found to occur when the Sun was in a particular constellation which was then named Aquarius, or water bearer).

The signs of the zodiac are subdivided into four groups:

• Fire Signs: Aries, Sagittarius, Leo

• Water Signs: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces

• Air Signs: Libra, Aquarius, Gemini

• Earth Signs: Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo

Horoscopes

A horoscope is a map of the zodiacal circle with Earth at the center. The top of the circle represents the Sun at its highest point during the day and left and right of that are the eastern and western horizons.

Astrology is an all-encompassing art/science which has far-reaching consequences in the lives of countless numbers of people worldwide.

We have only to turn to the authority of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, which defines astrology as a science: "The ancient art or science of divining the fate and future of human beings from indications given by the position of stars and other heavenly bodies."

No matter what your Sun sign, we are all affected by the 12 signs of the zodiac, as the Sun and other planets cycle through the horoscope over the course of a year.

Browse through the signs of astrology here to learn their deeper meaning — and how you can use their powers to your advantage.