Editing Zodiac (section)

== Usage ==
[[File:Zodiac (PSF).png|thumb|Modern zodiac wheel showing the 12 signs used in [[horoscopic astrology]]]]
The zodiac was in use by the [[Roman era]], based on concepts inherited by [[Hellenistic astronomy]] from [[Babylonian astronomy]] of the [[Neo-Babylonian|Chaldean period]] (mid-1st millennium BC), which, in turn, derived from an earlier system of lists of stars along the ecliptic.<ref>See [[MUL.APIN]]. See also {{cite book|last1=Lankford|first1=John|last2=Rothenberg|first2=Marc|title=History of Astronomy: An Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=berWESi5c5QC&pg=RA1-PA43|year=1997|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-8153-0322-0|page=43}}</ref> The construction of the zodiac is described in [[Ptolemy]]'s comprehensive 2nd century AD work, the ''[[Almagest]]''.<ref>{{Cite book | last1=Ptolemy | given1=Claudius | author-link=Ptolemy | title=The Almagest | publisher=Princeton University Press | place=Princeton, New Jersey | date=1998 | isbn=0-691-00260-6}} Translated and annotated by [[G. J. Toomer]]; with a foreword by [[Owen Gingerich]].</ref>

Although the zodiac remains the basis of the [[ecliptic coordinate system]] in use in [[astronomy]] besides the [[equatorial coordinate system|equatorial]] one,<ref>{{cite web | last=Shapiro | first=Lee T. | url=http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/starfinder3/ | title=Constellations in the zodiac | publisher=[[NASA]] | access-date=27 April 2011 | archive-date=4 March 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120304212807/http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/starfinder3 | url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | title=Finding Our Place in the Solar System: The Scientific Story of the Copernican Revolution | first1=Todd | last1=Timberlake | first2=Paul | last2=Wallace | date=28 March 2019 | page=33 | isbn=9781107182295 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wFqHDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA33 | access-date=20 March 2023 | archive-date=7 April 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230407062433/https://books.google.com/books?id=wFqHDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA33 | url-status=live }}</ref> the term and the names of the twelve signs are today mostly associated with [[horoscopic astrology]].<ref>{{cite journal | first=B. L. | last=van der Waerden | author-link=Bartel Leendert van der Waerden | title=History of the zodiac | journal=Archiv für Orientforschung | volume=16 | date=1953 | pages=216–230 | bibcode=1953ArOri..16..216V }}</ref> The term "zodiac" may also refer to the region of the [[celestial sphere]] encompassing the paths of the planets corresponding to the band of about 8 arc degrees above and below the ecliptic. The zodiac of a given planet is the band that contains the path of that particular body; e.g., the "zodiac of the Moon" is the band of 5° above and below the ecliptic. By extension, the "zodiac of the comets" may refer to the band encompassing most [[short-period comet]]s.<ref>[[OED]], citing [[John Harris (writer)|J. Harris]], ''[[Lexicon Technicum]]'' (1704): "Zodiack of the Comets, [[Giovanni Domenico Cassini|Cassini]] hath observed a certain Tract [...] within whose Bounds [...] he hath found most Comets [...] to keep."</ref>