Constellations and astrological indicators
At 13 UTC on Might 20, 2024, the sun will enter the astrological signal of Gemini. However – in the true sky – the sun doesn’t cross into the constellation Gemini till a month later, June 21, 2024, at 9 UTC.
What provides? Why is there a distinction between indicators as outlined by astrologers, and constellations as defined by astronomers?
The indicators of Aries, Taurus, and so forth. – nonetheless utilized in astrology – are 30 degree-wide bands alongside the ecliptic, beginning at longitude 0 levels. That is also called the First Point of Aries. The constellations are areas of the starry sky, outlined since 1930 by particular traces and bounds. The 2 coincided, considerably over 2,000 years in the past, when the system of astrological indicators was outlined. However precession – the wobbling of Earth’s spin axis over a cycle of 25,800 years – has made them more and more divergent.
The sun’s path by way of the sky
The chart on the high of this put up reveals the sun’s journey from round March 20, 2020, (the spring or vernal equinox) to Might 20, 2024. You’ll be able to see that the sun does certainly attain longitude 60 levels on the ecliptic. However this brings it to the start (roughly) of constellation Taurus, not Gemini. It should journey one other 30 levels – one month – to enter Gemini.
The celebs and constellations keep fastened. What shifts over time is the celestial equator – the “belt,” you would say, of the spinning Earth – and the mapping system primarily based on it.
Picturing constellations and indicators
Mentally transfer them. Think about the sun’s March-to-Might observe, and the celestial equator – the 2 options I’ve emphasised with crimson on the chart above – slid 30 levels to the left (east), whereas every little thing else stays in place. The crossing-point of equator and ecliptic – which is the zero level for longitude – is 30 levels to the left: it’s at what’s now longitude 30 levels, the start of Aries. So it truly is then the First Level of Aries. On this psychological projection, the sun is on the First Level of Aries in March, and arrives on the gates of Gemini at the moment in Might.
This was how issues stood when the system of indicators was agreed upon, round 2,000 years in the past.
You’ll be able to, with some creativeness, see it in your sky, or on the chart on the high of this web page.
There’s the sun (beneath the horizon) at its Might 20, 2020, place the place it enters the astrological signal of Gemini. If this had been 150 BCE it could be 30 levels on, at what’s now longitude 90 levels – the solstice level of our time, by the ft of Gemini.
Backside line: When – astrologically – the sun enters the “signal” of Gemini, it’s nonetheless practically one month away from coming into the constellation Gemini within the sky.
Check here to see what constellation the sun is in today.
Check here to see where the sun is today in its astrological sign.
