I was speaking to a mate who has an affinity for star signs a couple of days ago. I then proceeded to ask her whether she knew anything interesting about the star sign that was added to the zodiac collection. To my surprise, she knew nothing of it. Now I had to go find out on my own…

Parke Kunkle, who teaches astronomy at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, ruffled up a few feathers mid January when he harassed tattoo sporting zodiac sign zealots with his adjustment of the 2000 year old zodiac calendar.

Ophiuchus has been "re-added" to the stars. It is still a wet-inked book in the New Testament of Babylonian astrology: The Parke Kunkle Version, I guess.

But why "add" another star sign? Precession is the guilty party. It is the motion of a rotating body which wobbles in a manner that the axis rotates in a cone shape.

A spinning top or a gyroscope are fine examples. However, this is happening to our planet. According to Universe Today, earth weighs in at 5.9736 x 10²⁴ kg. That's 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg or 5.9 sextillion tonnes. A more understandable and even easier value to remember is six thousand billion billion metric tons. Furthermore, this chubby rock spins at 1,675 km/h or 465 m/s. We have gravity to thank for keeping us on the ground and momentum to thank for us not feeling that sickening spin; it's like being in a car and not feeling it's speed. Also, you won't feel the precession because it takes 26, 000 years to complete one circle.

Ophiuchus has always existed but it was always ignored by ancient Babylonians who wanted 12 signs. Ophiuchus is a large 13th constellation of the zodiac. It is also known as the Serpent Bearer. It is represented by a man holding a snake.

"The earliest known astronomer to recognize and assess the movement of precession was Aristarchus of Samos, who lived around 280 B.C." − Joe Rao

Astrology has been an inside joke in astronomy departments, and rightly so. Astrology is a pseudo-science, like Social Science or Communication Science. Nevertheless, there are people who believe in the science signs of the zodiac.

Here is a round up of the new zodiac dates:

Source: BBC News