If you regularly read your horoscope, you will have likely seen news circulating over the past few days that suggests your star sign has changed.
According to social media, thanks to Nasa’s discovery of a 13th zodiac sign, star signs have shifted for many people, leaving them to question everything they thought they knew.
This new star sign – Ophiuchus, known as the serpent bearer – sits between Scorpio and Sagittarius in the Zodiac calendar, and affects anyone born between November 29 and December 17.
However, Ophiuchus is not new. In fact, astrologers have known about the constellation for hundreds of years, and the idea that it should become an official zodiac sign was first floated back in the 1970s.
So, the headlines are fake news, Nasa has not just discovered Ophiuchus, nor has it updated the zodiac calendar. In fact, Nasa – a scientific centre for space research – has nothing to do with astrology, which is often rejected by the scientific community and has no proven basis.
People are likely talking about this again after a blog post from 2016 on Nasa website Space Place resurfaced. It's aimed at children, and this isn't the first time it has gone viral and caused people to question their star signs.
The post explains how the zodiac chart was created more than 3,000 years ago by the Babylonians, who, despite recognising 13 star constellations in the solar system, chose to create the chart based on 12 to coincide with the months of the year.
In fact, it is acknowledged that there are as many as 48 star constellations, although many of them are much smaller than the 12 used as star signs.
Ophiuchus is found to the northwest of the centre of the Milky Way. The idea of making it an official star sign appears to have originated in 1970 with Stephen Schmidt's suggestion of a 14-sign zodiac, also including Cetus as a sign.
That never happened. And fast forward 50 years, the 12-sign zodiac calendar remains.
So, while this may be new information to many astrology fans who were not aware of the existence of Ophiuchus, there’s no need to panic, your star sign is the same as it has always been.
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- Fewer criminals put behind bars and more to serve sentences in the community, with short sentences scrapped and many inmates released earlier.
- Greater use of curfews and exclusion zones to deliver tougher supervision than ever on criminals.
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- More Intensive Supervision Courts to tackle the root causes of crime such as alcohol and drug abuse – forcing repeat offenders to take part in tough treatment programmes or face prison.
Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
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