Aries Point

The ecliptic is the apparent path of the Sun on the Celestial Sphere

Synonyms: vernal or spring equinox

It is the point at which the Sun crosses the celestial equator from South to North on its apparent path around the Earth. It is equivalent to zero degrees of Aries in the tropical zodiac. The other point of intersection is the autumnal equinox which is located directly opposite.

It was called the Aries point because at the time it was named it occurred in the constellation of Aries.

History

The choice of starting position from which to measure the Sun's motion across celestial sphere is arbitrary. The equinoxes are preferred as an equinox marks the point in time when the Sun has neither northern nor southern declination but is crossing the celestial equator. Of the two possible equinoxes the ancient Greeks chose the March equinox as the starting point. This coincided with the festival of Hilaria, a time of optimism and beginnings where farmers began to sow or observed the first growth and blossoming of trees and summer crops. The naming of Aries is late in the Babylonian zodiac where the equinox was in its earliest tradition marked as in the early Middle Bronze Age by actual coincidence with the Pleiades. The time also corresponds to the time of castration of male calves, mules and donkeys, Sanguia on the vernal equinox and marked the start of spring proper.

The first point of Aries is so called because, when Hipparchus defined it in 130 BCE, it was located in the western extreme of the constellation of Aries, near its border with Pisces and the star Gamma Arietis. Due to the Sun's eastward movement across the sky throughout the year, this western end of Aries was the point at which the Sun entered the constellation, hence the name first point of Aries.

Definition

Due to Earth's axial precession, this point gradually moves westwards at a rate of about one degree every 72 years. This means that, since the time of Hipparchus, it has shifted across the sky by about 30°, and is currently located within Pisces, near its border with Aquarius. The Sun now appears in Aries from late April until mid-May, though the constellation is still associated with the beginning of the northern spring.

The first point of Aries is important to the fields of astronomy, nautical navigation and astrology. Due to the slow Precession of the equinoxes, the zenith view (above a location) of constellations at a time of year from a given location have slowly moved west. The tropical Zodiac is similarly affected and no longer corresponds with the constellations (the Cusp of Libra today is located within Virgo). In sidereal astrology, by contrast, the first point of Aries remains aligned with the Aries constellation.

However, this is irrelevant for Western astrology which is based on the tropical zodiac - as opposed to Indian astrology (also known as vedic astrology) which continues to work with the sidereal zodiac.

When the Sun reaches the Spring Equinox around the 21st March, the number of daylight hours is equal all over the globe.

The International Astrology Day is observed on this date.

See also

• Ayanamsha
• Equinox

Weblinks

• Wikipedia: First Point of Aries
• The Zero Point of the Zodiac – the Pisces/Aries Border (Louise Huber, 1987)