Hold Up, Did NASA Just Announce That Our Zodiac Signs Are All Wrong?

Though it's been decried as a pseudoscience, a lot of people consider astrology — the study of how the movement of celestial bodies affect our lives — when making important decisions. According to a Gallup poll, one out of four people believes that an individual's zodiac sign can directly affect his or her life. With that in mind, it's no surprise that when Cosmopolitan UK reported earlier this week that a January NASA study discovered a brand new star sign and shifted the zodiac calendar's dates (making the signs as we know them all wrong), people FREAKED.

But here's some good news before you go and get that Scorpio tattoo lasered off: it's a false alarm.

“NASA studies astronomy not astrology,” a NASA spokesman told a Gizmodo reporter, who notes, "Strangely, the source of the rumor appears to stem from a bizarre misinterpretation of an educational page the agency put out for kids." 

The site in question is called "Space Place," an educational resource produced by NASA for kids interested in the universe. One page about constellations describes how Babylonians created the zodiac calendar 3,000 years ago based on the position of certain star groups. And since the Earth has slightly tilted on its axis since then, as Gizmodo reports, the constellations that the Babylonians looked at aren't in the same place as they are today — hence NASA's addition of a 13th zodiac sign. 

But don't go looking to NASA for your daily horoscope. 

“We didn’t change any zodiac signs, we just did the math,” the NASA spokesman told Gizmodo. “The Space Place article was about how astrology is not astronomy, how it was a relic of ancient history, and pointed out the science and math that did come from observations of the night sky.”

While they sound similar, astrology and astrology are not, in fact, one and the same. The Space Place article breaks it down:

"Astronomy is the scientific study of everything in outer space. Astronomers and other scientists know that stars many light years away have no effect on the ordinary activities of humans on Earth.

Astrology is something else. It's not science. 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. Still, like reading fantasy stories, many people enjoy reading their 'astrological forecast' or 'horoscope' in the newspaper every day." 

Aside from the fact that you maybe just got dissed by NASA, if you're a fan of the OG zodiac calendar, you don't have anything to worry about.