What is the zodiac? What are the zodiac signs?

Do you know what the north latitude is? If you don't know what latitude means, you can open a map of China or take out a globe. The black arc marked with degrees horizontally from top to bottom is latitude. Take a closer look at the north latitude of your city. On the whole earth, the latitude circle is a circle parallel to the equator. The black circle marked with 0 degree in the middle of the globe is the equator, which is the longest latitude circle. When you look at the north-south direction of the earth from the equatorial line, you will see two latitude circles marked 10 degrees, and the range between these two latitude circles is what we now call the equatorial belt.

I believe that if you are smart enough, you will find this equatorial belt. The celestial sphere is only an enlarged version of the earth, so there will certainly be some latitude on the earth when you reach it. So the equatorial belt on the celestial sphere refers to the celestial sphere roughly between the latitude of the southern hemisphere 10 and the latitude of the northern hemisphere 10. Of course, the zodiac sign is located in this area, so the zodiac sign contains both the northern sky and the southern sky, which is a major feature of it.

Zodiac constellations include 10 constellations. Most of Ptolemy's 48 constellations belong to Polaris and Zodiac. In this way, people's understanding of the zodiac has a history of thousands of years.

According to the division of constellations by the International Astronomical Union, there are 10 constellations in the equatorial belt, namely Sagittarius, Canis minor, Eagle, Ophiuchus, Ophiuchus, sextant, Ophiuchus, Unicorn, Orion and Whale. Are you surprised to see Ophiuchus here? Ophiuchus is a very special constellation and the only one that crosses the celestial equator, the galactic ecliptic and the ecliptic, so it belongs to both the ecliptic and the equatorial constellation. Besides Ophiuchus, there is also a very famous constellation, namely Aquila. On the east bank of the Milky Way, the Altair, which is far away from Vega, is the alpha star of Aquila, while the beta star and gamma star of Aquila are on both sides of Altair, so in ancient China, the beta star and gamma star were regarded as two children carried by Altair with a pole.

It is said that the seventh day of July is the day when they meet, and all the magpies in the world will come to match them. This is the legendary meeting between magpies and bridges. But this is just a beautiful legend. The distance between Altair and Vega is 16 light years (the distance that light travels straight in a vacuum for one year, 1 light years ≈94605 billion kilometers). Even without the barrier of the Milky Way, "two people" can only meet in their dreams! According to astronomers' accurate observation, at this time, there is a half moon floating near the Milky Way, and Bai Yueguang makes us unable to see the Milky Way. The ancients thought that Tianhe disappeared at this time, and the cowherd and weaver girl met at this time. This is the truth of the matter. Although myths and legends are unscientific, they sometimes illustrate a phenomenon, and what we need to do is to look at the essence through the phenomenon and explore the real mystery behind this phenomenon.

The famous constellation in the zodiac is the world-famous Orion, which is praised by astronomers as a star nursery factory. There are also Ophiuchus, which ranks first in the constellation area rankings, and Whale, which ranks fourth. Zodiac constellation is really not simple.