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In the mid-to-late 1800s, many prominent astronomers were pretty sure there was another planet inside the orbit of Mercury, because Mercury's orbit has a peculi

In the mid-to-late 1800s, many prominent astronomers were pretty sure there was another planet inside the orbit of Mercury, because Mercury's orbit has a peculiar irregularity. They called this yet-to-be-properly-seen planet 'Vulcan', and it became a fixture in astrologers' horoscopes. In the early 20th century, Einstein came along with his Theory of General Relativity, and with these equations he demonstrated that the sun's gravity was bending spacetime in a way that perfectly accounted for Mercury's wobble. Vulcan was therefore found to be a myth, nonexistent.[1] Nevertheless, many astrologers still feature Vulcan in their horoscopes even today, over a century later.[2] The inclusion of an entirely fictional heavenly body seems to undermine any other conclusions drawn from planetary positions. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(hypothetical_planet) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(hypothetical_planet) 2: https://cosmicdeity.com/vulcan-astrology/ https://cosmicdeity.com/vulcan-astrology/

zzo38computer 2y ago
I think you are right. Sometimes fictitious planets are included in horoscopes, and this is one of the reasons why; some people continue to use it because some people included it in horoscopes in the past. There are others as well, such as the fictitious planets in the Hamburg astrology. I have also read that apparently some astrologers decided to exclude Pluto from horoscopes because the IAU no longer considers Pluto to be a planet. That isn't a valid reason; Pluto still has coordinates and therefore can still be plotted on a horoscope (fictitious planets (such as Vulcan) also have coordinates although in that case the coordinates are made up rather than being real coordinates). Sun and Moon are not considered planets by IAU but are included on a horoscope too. You might decide to remove Pluto in case you think there are too many planets in the horoscope, but what the IAU says is irrelevant to horoscopes. (The Earth is usually the centre of measurement of a horoscope (although sometimes the Sun is used instead, but this is less common), so it is implicitly included in a horoscope but cannot be one of the objects plotted on it (since the plotting uses angular coordinates, and the object at the centre obviously has no angular coordinates).)
dredmorbius 2y ago
The story of Vulcan's hypothesized existence, and disproof by Einstein, was the title essay in a collection by Isaac Asimov, The Planet that Wasn't (1976): <https://thisweekatthelibrary.blogspot.com/2011/10/planet-that-wasnt.html https://thisweekatthelibrary.blogspot.com/2011/10/planet-tha...> <https://archive.org/details/planetthatwasnt0000asim https://archive.org/details/planetthatwasnt0000asim>

zzo38computer 2y ago

I think you are right. Sometimes fictitious planets are included in horoscopes, and this is one of the reasons why; some people continue to use it because some people included it in horoscopes in the past. There are others as well, such as the fictitious planets in the Hamburg astrology. I have also read that apparently some astrologers decided to exclude Pluto from horoscopes because the IAU no longer considers Pluto to be a planet. That isn't a valid reason; Pluto still has coordinates and therefore can still be plotted on a horoscope (fictitious planets (such as Vulcan) also have coordinates although in that case the coordinates are made up rather than being real coordinates). Sun and Moon are not considered planets by IAU but are included on a horoscope too. You might decide to remove Pluto in case you think there are too many planets in the horoscope, but what the IAU says is irrelevant to horoscopes. (The Earth is usually the centre of measurement of a horoscope (although sometimes the Sun is used instead, but this is less common), so it is implicitly included in a horoscope but cannot be one of the objects plotted on it (since the plotting uses angular coordinates, and the object at the centre obviously has no angular coordinates).)

dredmorbius 2y ago

The story of Vulcan's hypothesized existence, and disproof by Einstein, was the title essay in a collection by Isaac Asimov, The Planet that Wasn't (1976): <https://thisweekatthelibrary.blogspot.com/2011/10/planet-that-wasnt.html https://thisweekatthelibrary.blogspot.com/2011/10/planet-tha...> <https://archive.org/details/planetthatwasnt0000asim https://archive.org/details/planetthatwasnt0000asim>