The difference is astronomical. 

The trend everyone can see on their social media platforms is talked about but people don’t know the difference. 

The trend of people trying to figure out their zodiac sign and what type of personality they have, based on when they were born, has taken social media by storm recently. On popular apps like Tiktok and Instagram, you can find these videos blowing up and popularized by the generation. With it being more popularized, stereotypes tend to start happening about a sign.

When several people assume about the stars as astronomy they may tend to begin thinking about the aspects of astronomy but start to think of how astrology works, leading them to confuse the two. Lots of people confuse the two just because of the similar names and just the word pronunciation. “Probably because they’re two similar things,” sophomore Malorie Druin said. When the difference becomes apparent, people who are interested are prone to better understand astrology and astronomy on a higher level. 

Astrology is the study of the positions and movements of celestial bodies, such as the sun, moon and planets. These celestial bodies are thought to have an impact on both the natural world and human affairs. “Astrology is more based off of ancient Greek and Rome,” eighth grader Eva Schilling said. Constellations and some names of the zodiac signs can be found in Greek mythology. The Romans also had the same gods as the Greeks but they had different names, their names later became planets in our solar system today. For example, Poseidon and Zeus became Neptune and Jupiter. There are also more planets based on Roman gods like Venus and Mars and each sign has a planet ruler, such as Virgo, which is ruled by Mercury. A planet ruler is when a planet is positioned there and it’s said to have a stronger influence over it. Astrology is all about how the stars and planets are positioned to affect the way humans are, which can be brought back to human affairs in our world. 

Astrology is made out of a bunch of signs like zodiac and Chinese ones as well as the moon, sun and rising signs, horoscopes and much more. “People who are very passionate about it will ask you for your ‘big three’, which are your sun, moon and rising sign. Each of them says something about a different part of your personality. Your moon signs for example says a lot about how you deal with or express your emotions,”junior Marley Long said. Rising or ascendant, moon, and sun planets are based on how the planets and stars are on your birthday, as Long said they all tell different parts of you as a whole. 

Astronomy is a branch of science that focuses on the physical universe, space and particular celestial objects like comets. “It’s just a bunch of stars in the sky,” junior Sarah Monroe said. Astronomy is the study of stars and planets. Astronomy is a science with a lot of subcategories like each planet, constellations and black holes. Astronomy can be a type of job like a meteorologist and of course an astronomer. Astronomy has a bunch of different branches that lead to different types of sciences, like astrophysics and astrobiology. These branches are also connected to space science as they are the studies of the planets and how the planets are as a whole. Astronomy is much more the study of the star’s position, unlike astrology which is horoscopes and much more popularly learned about without generation.