The fake 13th astrological sign was one of the top 10 things most tweeted about:After one astronomer said that there was a 13th astrological sign called Ophiuchus, the media jumped on it, and bloggers went awry with pathetic cries of growing up under the wrong astrological sign.. It's all rubbish! To make sure you can sleep tonight, read the truth as told by astronomer Eric Francis:
As for Ophiuchus. This is an old hoax. Historically, Ophiuchus has never been listed as a constellation in the sidereal zodiac. It is a constellation out there, but it's off the ecliptic (that is, it's not along the path of the Sun through the sky). I've read that Ptolemy mentions it in his literature as an off-zodiac constellation, meaning that the Sun never travels through it. In any event, there are some two dozen constellations that touch the ecliptic; but the sidereal zodiac uses just 12 of them. The origin of the hoax is a sci-fi author named John Sladek -- a satire writer who died in 2000. Sladek liked to prank astrology, and he has a whole novel about a fictitious 13th sign based on Ophiuchus he called Arachne that was "suppressed by the scientific community." The Ophiuchus hoax first made its rounds in the late 1990s and pops up again like those emails from the guy in Nigeria who wants you to send him your bank account number so he can transfer $15 million your way.#Ophiuchus
