--- title: NASA Elegantly Shuts Down Those New Zodiac Star Theories description: Sorry NASA has not changed your star sign with a 13th zodiac sign canonical: https://time.com/5867647/nasa-zodiac-star/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-07-17T14:30:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:02.156Z og:title: NASA Elegantly Shuts Down Those New Zodiac Star Theories og:description: Sorry NASA has not changed your star sign with a 13th zodiac sign og:url: https://time.com/5867647/nasa-zodiac-star/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5f06d3560d31c3e7/698a106f096a9483606a86a5/NASA-Zodiac-Sign.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: SpaceX And NASA Prepare For Next Launch Attempt On Saturday, After Weather Delays Wednesday Launch og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: NASA Elegantly Shuts Down Those New Zodiac Star Theories twitter:description: Sorry NASA has not changed your star sign with a 13th zodiac sign twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5f06d3560d31c3e7/698a106f096a9483606a86a5/NASA-Zodiac-Sign.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # NASA Elegantly Shuts Down Those New Zodiac Star Theories > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ## Video: NASA Has No Time for Your Astrology Nonsense [Watch (HLS stream): NASA Has No Time for Your Astrology Nonsense](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/aKAkyKjL.m3u8) (0:51)  _Published 2016-09-26. You may have a totally new zodiac sign, according to an astronomy society that redefined the zodiac calendar, but NASA wants to clarify its role in the matter._ by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Jul 17, 2020 2:30 PM UTC  Workers repaint the NASA logo in 2011. Workers repaint the NASA logo in 2011. Joe Raedle–Getty Images by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Jul 17, 2020 2:30 PM UTC A new story about an old misunderstanding is once again circulating—and NASA is [once again setting the record straight](https://time.com/4507672/nasa-on-zodiac-signs/). It all started with a resurfaced story [NASA](https://time.com/5859369/nasa-names-headquarters-mary-jackson/) “discovered” a 13th zodiac sign—Ophiuchus, or the serpent-bearer. Anyone born between November 29 and December 17 would no longer be a Scorpio or a Sagittarius, but an Ophiuchus. Scorpio’s window would be cut to just seven days and the entire astrology chart would shift, meaning some Pisces and Leos and Libras would have different star signs. As astrology lovers online started to panic, NASA gently waded into the online fray to set the record straight. “We see your comments about a zodiac story that re-emerges every few years,” the space agency wrote in a tweet. “No, we did not change the zodiac.” It includes a link to a Tumblr post that explains what actually happened. > [](https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1283918088723935234) In a [blog post](https://nasa.tumblr.com/post/150688852794/zodiac), NASA patiently explains the difference between astronomy (“the scientific study of everything in space”) and astrology (“\[i\]t’s not considered a science”). NASA then notes that the zodiac signs are simply constellations that are in line with the Earth and the Sun as the planet follows its orbit. Earth actually travels through 13 signs, including Capricorn, Aries, and, yes, Ophiuchus, but some 3,000 years ago the Babylonians—not NASA—decided 12 was neater than 13, so excluded the 13th zodiac sign and divided the zodiac into 12 parts based on the 12 months of their calendar, according to NASA. “The line from Earth through the sun points to Virgo for 45 days, but it points to Scorpius for only 7 days. To make a tidy match with their 12-month calendar, the Babylonians ignored the fact that the sun actually moves through 13 constellations, not 12\. Then they assigned each of those 12 constellations equal amounts of time,” NASA explains in their post. Back in 2011, [as TIME reported](http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/13/horoscope-hang-up-earth-rotation-changes-zodiac-signs/), astronomers from the Minnesota Planetarium Society found that because of the moon’s gravitational pull on Earth, the[ alignment of the stars](https://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/13/horoscope-hang-up-earth-rotation-changes-zodiac-signs/) has shifted, so the sun points to different parts of the zodiac at different times. “So, we didn’t change any zodiac signs…we just did the math,” the space agency’s blog post concludes. That post was originally written in 2016, but as the story of a shifting zodiac circulates once again, NASA has retweeted it again. While the Tumblr post it linked too is fairly straight forward, the staid space agency gets a little spicier in its take on astronomy on its early education site. “No one has shown that astrology can be used to predict the future or describe what people are like based only on their birth date,” [NASA writes on their children’s site](https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/starfinder2/en/). “Still, like reading fantasy stories, many people enjoy reading their ‘astrological forecast’ or ‘horoscope’ in the newspaper every day.” ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5867647/nasa-zodiac-star/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5867647/nasa-zodiac-star/"},"headline":"NASA Elegantly Shuts Down Those New Zodiac Star Theories","datePublished":"2020-07-17T14:30:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:47:02.156Z","description":"Sorry, NASA has not changed your star sign with a 13th zodiac sign","url":"https://time.com/5867647/nasa-zodiac-star/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Brief","clickmonsters"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5f06d3560d31c3e7/698a106f096a9483606a86a5/NASA-Zodiac-Sign.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5f06d3560d31c3e7/698a106f096a9483606a86a5/NASA-Zodiac-Sign.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"SpaceX And NASA Prepare For Next Launch Attempt On Saturday, After Weather Delays Wednesday Launch","caption":"NASA","creditText":"Joe Raedle–Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5867647/nasa-zodiac-star/","name":"NASA Elegantly Shuts Down Those New Zodiac Star Theories"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"NASA Has No Time for Your Astrology Nonsense","description":"You may have a totally new zodiac sign, according to an astronomy society that redefined the zodiac calendar, but NASA wants to clarify its role in the matter.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/aKAkyKjL/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-09-26T19:54:45.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/aKAkyKjL.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5867647/nasa-zodiac-star/","duration":"PT51S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5867647/nasa-zodiac-star/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```