NASA rubbishes reports that it has changed the Zodiac
21 Sep 2016
Refuting claims that it is updating the astrological signs, NASA has said that it did not do it as the space agency studies astronomy not astrology.
"We did not change any Zodiac signs, we just did the math. The Space Place (an educational page for kids run by NASA) article was about how astrology is not astronomy, how it was a relic of ancient history and pointed out the science and math that did come from observations of the night sky," NASA spokesperson Dwayne Brown told Gizmodo.
Last week news had spread that 86 per cent of the people now have a different star sign as NASA had decided to update the astrological signs for the first time in 2,000 years.
In NASA's educational page for children called Space Place, the agency discussed how, some 3,000 years ago, the ancient Babylonians - keen sky-watchers - thought that the changing positions of constellations throughout the year could be linked to certain behaviours or events on Earth.
As a result of this, they invented the zodiac.
"So, as Earth orbits the Sun, the Sun would appear to pass through each of the 12 parts of the zodiac. Since the Babylonians already had a 12-month calendar (based on the phases of the Moon), each month got a slice of the zodiac all to itself," Science Alert reported on Monday citing the article in Space Place.
