What is the difference between astronomy and astrology?
People who have not studied either subject may be forgiven for believing that Astronomy involves going into the garden on a freezing cold night and pointing a telescope at the stars and planets. Similarly, they may think that Astrology involves looking up their horoscope in a tabloid newspaper to see if fate is going to be kind to them that day. Thousands of years ago, the ancients used to look at the night sky, presumably because they had few distractions. In addition to learning, over the generations, how the Sun, Moon and planets appeared to move against the background of the stars, they also noted apparent correspondences between events in the sky and events in their lives. Astronomy and Astrology were thus very much linked together, and people learned, for example, that when Mars and Jupiter were due to be visible close together, in the same part of the sky, they might expect an increased amount of activity based on emotional factors. By extension, they perhaps reasoned that there
Believe it or not, this is the most asked question I have encountered. Astrology is the ancient practice of using the locations of the planets to look into a person’s personality or predict the future. This is a totally non-scientific field that does not involve science. By contrast, astronomy is the scientific study of the universe. Astronomers observe the objects in the night sky to try to determine their origins and learn more about the origin and structure of the universe.
Astronomy is very much factual. Every bit of information shared by an astronomer is based on observation and is accorded to known laws of physics. Astronomy bases information observed on celestial objects. In astronomy, information is renewed and improved as technology to observe improves. Information in astronomy is shared to educate people. Astrology is not factual but is based merely on guesses and deals a lot on chances. Astrological guesses are not based on observing heavenly bodies but merely on people themselves. In astrology, every form of information is common to something already provided in the past. Most astrologers relate information either to please or scare people.
In the past astrology and astronomy were muddled up together. Kings, queens and emperors thought that everyone’s life was predicted by what happened in the sky with the stars. In order to find out what was written in the stars they paid for people to study the stars (astronomy) and to extract the meaning of the motions and events in the sky for the lives of the people and the fortunes of their kingdom (astrology). Today we know that our lives are not written in the stars although the events in the stars do and can influence life on Earth. If a large comet were to collide with the Earth it would have a very big effect. If there were a supernovae explosion within a few hundred light years of the Earth it would have a big effect, but we believe that by and large we make our own lives and that astrology is a meaningless bit of fun. Astronomy continues to be the study of the stars where we develop theories to describe the processes that govern the lives of stars, galaxies and the Universe a
