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skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 10 months agoAries wasn’t even a constellation until some Greeks decided it was. They attached it to the mythical ram in the golden fleece myth. It looks a little ram-like with the full milky way behind it, but it’s not much of a constellation.
For some reason astrology bullshit has taken over the entire internet when it comes to researching star signs. The story behind the ram is mentioned (copy pasted) everywhere but fails to tell how exactly Ptolomy made the connection.
burningmatches@feddit.uk 10 months ago
Isn’t that how all constellations came about?
skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 10 months ago
Other constellations are much older, and are actually in the shape of the thing they represent. Ptolomy wrote down his constellations about 900 years after the Babylonians split up the zodiac into the constellations we now use in the western world as well as India and the Islamic world (with the exception of a bigger constellation that was split into three). An earlier version of Babylonian astrology goes back to about 1000 BCE and still covers many of the constellations we use today, with many names coinciding with their Greek and current derivations.
100CE is still old of course, but it’s about as far removed from the origins of most other constellations as we are from the East-West Schism.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 10 months ago
Especially nowadays with light pollution it’s easy to tell which constellations make sense, the top ones in the northern sky IMO being: Cassiopeia, Ursa Major, Orion, Cygnus (really just the middle 4 stars), and Ursa Minor but mostly because that’s got Polaris in it and it’s the most important star.
Also fun anecdote: When i was a kid and didn’t know any constellations other than orion, cassiopeia, and ursa major; i independently recognized the middle 4 stars of cygnus and called it the Pilot because it looks like the front view of a jet fighter, so how’s THAT for being a sensible constellation!
burningmatches@feddit.uk 10 months ago
Sure, but it’s still just some dudes playing join-the-dots in the sky. None of it means anything.