Have We Been Living With The Wrong Astrological Sign For Years?

This story has been updated as of 9/28/16.

Whether you live and die by what your horoscope says or just like to take a peek at what your love life will be like from time to time, you may have heard the news that NASA changed all of our astrological signs.

As stories go, that’s not entirely true. In part, it’s not true because NASA doesn’t actually recognize astrology as a real science in the first place, so it’s not exactly in the business of sounding in on our signs.

What NASA has provided is some background on the positioning of Earth in relation to the stars. With the way the Earth has shifted, today the star you’re “born under” would be different than it was when the Babylonians first divided up the zodiac into 12 signs thousands of years ago. If your birthday falls on August 8, for example, you would be a Cancer based on today’s alignment, not a Leo.

Here’s a handy chart that shows how the stars would align with our birthdays today:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKIhtyeDsX8/

For a perfectionist Virgo like me, this is a little jarring. What am I going to do without all of my stars perfectly in line the way I always imagined them to be? Digging a little deeper, it seems that astrologists aren’t all that worried about NASA’s star findings.

According to a Quartz article, astrologers still base their interpretations on the old star alignment, so NASA’s news doesn’t much affect the way horoscopes are read.

The good news is, just because your star sign has changed doesn’t mean your tendencies have. So, if you base your actions on what your horoscope says and consider yourself a die-hard Gemini, for example, you have nothing to fear. A simple star rearrangement won’t change all of that.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKUiIfTAEUY/?tagged=ophiuchus

Although, let’s also not forget about that 13th sign that was added to the mix between Scorpio and Sagittarius. But if that’s really going to cause you to freak out— let’s just not think about that for now. On the other hand, if you never really felt like a Scorpio or a Sagittarius, this could come as good news. Because maybe you’re not either of those. Oh no, you’re an Ophiuchus now!

NASA also clarified that Ophiuchus isn’t technically “new,” as the Babylonians knew about this star, too. Their take is that the Babylonians wanted just 12 constellations to match their 12-month calendar and so old Ophiuchus got the boot.