The ancient Babylonians knew enough to track the sun's path through the sky, but they were unaware their reference point on Earth was unstable. Although the city of Babylon collapsed under the weight of repeated conquerings, this lean, Ophiuchus-less zodiac endured. The ancient astrologers only had 12 months to work with, but the sun passed through 13 large Babylonian constellations. The calendar did not translate to the stars perfectly. (These constellations are patterns that the Babylonians decided looked like animals or people.) The dates of the zodiac calendar follow this laser line as it sweeps from constellation to neighboring constellation, a bit like the hand of a clock. Imagine a laser beam that shoots from Earth, through the noonday sun and into constellations of stars beyond. In short, the Babylonians created the zodiac as we know it some 3,000 years ago. The zodiac is grounded in history more than science. In January, NASA wrote a brief history of how the western zodiac came to be. Just an informative blog post aimed at children.
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