#precession

[unbfacts]

A 2019 MIT study shows Earth's orbital shifts turn the Sahara green every 20,000 years by boosting monsoon rains, changing desert to savanna.

[sangastrology]

There’s a few pernicious misunderstandings about some basic premises of astrology, that skeptics like to point to as reasons why astrology doesn’t make any sense. One of my most trusted historical astrologers made a podcast episode about it recently. Over and over, the skeptics point to things that “don’t add up” to them, but they always demonstrate complete ignorance about the actual practice of astrology, making incorrect assumptions which they then “debunk”.

A key thing to understand about astrology is that the 30º zodiac signs are actually symbolic and not tied to the location of the constellations they are named for. It has been this way for over 2000 years. The astrological zodiac signs are simply a defined system under which we observe the 360º of the sky around us. In tropical astrology (most western systems) the zodiac signs are tied to the equinoxes, not to the constellations. This is necessary due to the earth’s axial precession.

See the video from Chris Brennan of The Astrology Podcast, “No, Your Zodiac Sign Hasn't Changed”

See more of my content at sangastrology.micro.blog

I’m also available for personal readings at sangastrology.com

[ometochtli2rabbit]

Today we talk about Precession which can occur at any moment as we enter the end of this cycle, though some scientists think we have already entered it. Many don't even know what it is, but basically, it's when the north pole was the south pole. What I have read says that it can occur in a matter of hours or hundreds of years. The NAHUA (Aztecs) recorded this phenomenon and believed that we are currently in the Fifth Solar Phase. The so-called Sun Sign shows the previous four suns and how they ended. Our current sun is OLLIN or MOVEMENT which suggests how this Sun Cycle will end - movement of the Earth. This will usher in the Sixth Solar Phase, so there is nothing to fear, though things will and can change instantly, just be aware.

Though our ancestors did not have Cardinal directions, northwest to northeast was north, northeast to southeast was east and so forth. Their knowledge of procession may be the result of that as they knew things were always shifting. This may also account for the destruction of even more ancient lands such as Lemuria and Atlantis. Modern science will never be able to prove this as most scientists don't want to know this even exists. The majority of jungles in Mexico have never even been researched. Many stopped looking when the evidence began to contradict their theories- so they simply don't pay it any heed. I am beyond the need for proof as I know that North America, the land underneath my feet, and South America are older than Europe. I know there will never be proof to convince most people, but I don't need it. I let my heart and the power of M guide me into the next solar phase.

[saturniandevil]

At last my favorite bald man has made a video about the precession of the equinoxes! As usual it's a bit dry and technical (~1 hour watch time), but he really gets into how the zodiac developed from its earliest known form to what we use today, and how it was a conscious choice for western astrologers to use the tropical zodiac.

Most of the important concepts we use today can be traced back to seasonal considerations (versus, say, Indian astrology, where the importance of nakshatras etc. makes the sidereal zodiac a good fit). So it's just plain bad scientific reporting to use this "factoid" to try and "debunk" astrology by, ironically, doing zero research into the subject!

[zespaceblog]

The Black Hole with Spin

The Earth has a wobble in it's orbit brought about by it's spin as it also orbits the Sun. The Sun also has a spin, rotating every 27 days.

We also know most stars spin, and can detect this through observation, so the assumption has always been that black holes also spin, but until now, it's not been possible to detect it.

Then came the first images of a super massive black hole, M87 is a massive elliptical galaxy 53 million light years from us, but is significantly larger than our own Sag A*. One aspect of this black hole that isn't the case in our galaxy, is the jet of material being blasted from the poles.

Close observations of this jet, over decades has shown there is a wobble, similar to the precession wobble the Earth has. The wobble appears to be completed every 11 years, but it's the very first evidence that the black hole itself is spinning.

The team of astronomers at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan noted that the spin matched a number of mathematical models, helping the team have a clearer understanding of how the black hole is behaving and interacting with it's accretion disk and near surroundings.

[tomorrowusa]

Astrology is total crap, there's no getting around that. Nobody explained why in a more effective way than astronomer Carl Sagan.

Earth's precession (a type of natural wobble) and the proper motion of the stars themselves have changed the way we Earth people view the night sky in the 3,000 or so years since astrology was concocted. In fact, there are actually 13 rather than 12 constellations the sun appears in throughout the course of the year. And the dates the sun enters and leaves those constellations of the zodiac can be weeks off from what astrologers tell you.

And just because stars appear close to each other from our perspective on Earth does not mean they are actually close to each other in reality.

Here is a diagram of the brighter stars in Gemini. The ones labeled range from Pollux (Beta Geminorum) which is an estimated 34 light years away to Mekbuta (Zeta Geminorum) which is about 1200 light years away. BTW Wasat (Delta Geminorum), which they forgot to number, is 60 light years away.

So a constellation is not some sort of special conclave of stars, it's a random collection which simply appears in the same patch of the sky as seen from Earth. The same is true of the other constellations – not just Gemini.

So your destiny has nothing to do with the changing positions of the stars and planets. Sorry! But we do all share a far more concrete connection to the universe.

All the elements except for hydrogen, helium, and (a tiny bit of) lithium were created inside of stars which blew up or ejected much of their contents billions of years ago.

I edited together a few sentences from the companion volume for the COSMOS series which the vid above comes from.

So yeah, the universe is inside all of us. That's our true connection to the cosmos.

[historysurvivalguide]

Proper Motion and Precession over 200k Years

Proper Motion

Proper Motion describes the small changes in the positions of stars due to constant motion of the universe. Some stars are moving towards Earth and some are moving away. Some move at an angle from or towards Earth and result in a change to a star’s position in the night sky (essentially, North/South: Declination and East/West: Right Ascension). These changes are almost always so small that they only become apparently over very large periods of time, usually thousands if not hundreds of thousands of year

Precession of the Equinoxes

To be more accurate however, a star’s position is both the result of the star’s own movement (proper motion) as well as the changing perspective of an observer. Most stars barely move in ten thousand years, but will appear to have move dramatically since the entire Earth’s axial tilt shifts under our feet. Precession gradually turns the sky in a circle and will have a profound impact over its 26 thousand year cycle. Combined together, stars will shift and crawl across the sky as well as appear to be rapidly flung and rotated in a circle around the changing celestial pole

The code and python package I made to make these star charts is available on my GitHub and as a Python package

[lakanen]

Falling In Another Plague Year

With day and night being about the same duration today, we witness the sun's passing of the celestial equator once again. In ancient times, this was called the First Point of Libra, because back then, the sun was just entering said constellation as summer ended. Times change and stars drift (see precession), so today we would probably name it The Second (or Third) Point of Virgo.

Round these parts, though, we just call it fall.