What is the zodiac in China?

What is the ecliptic? The earth goes around the sun once a year. From the earth's point of view, it is the sun that makes a circle among many constellations within one year. We call the orbit of the sun in the constellation, that is, the orbit of the sun's apparent motion on the celestial sphere, the ecliptic. In order to observe and study the position and movement of the sun on the ecliptic, astronomers in Babylon and ancient Greece divided the ecliptic into 12 segments, which were called "zodiac signs". The starting point of the zodiac is the vernal equinox, and every 30 is a palace. The zodiac signs correspond roughly to the twelve constellations on the ecliptic, and their names are borrowed from these twelve constellations, namely Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Lion, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.

More than 2000 years ago, when the zodiac was founded, the vernal equinox was in Aries, so Aries was designated as the first zodiac. The vernal equinox was also in Aries. However, due to precession, the position of vernal equinox moves westward about 50.2 "every year on the ecliptic. More than 2000 years have passed, and the accumulated * * * has moved more than 30 times to the west. The Zodiac 12 Palace also moved westward. After more than two thousand years of accumulation, the vernal equinox and Aries Palace are no longer Aries, but Pisces. In other words, there is no one-to-one correspondence between the zodiac and the zodiac. After about 24,000 years, Aries Palace will correspond to Aries again.