
Originally Posted by
cmind
ITT: Omnis Dei proves conclusively that he doesn't know what the hell Xei is talking about when he says "precession of equinoxes".
OD, let me enlighten you:
Over the course of 1 year, the Earth goes about the sun, and the constellations appear to rotate through the full cycle of 12, once. So in December, maybe the sun rises in Picses, and in January it rises in Capricorn, etc. By next December it's back in Picses. The months are wrong, but you get the idea.
Over the course of 26,000 years, the Earth's axis of rotation precesses (like a top) once. This shifts the constellation behind the rising sun (just for reference) on a given day of the year through the full 12 constellations. This is the phase shift of the above 1 year cycle. Every year, the constellation cycle is phase shifted by 1/26,000. So if the December sun rises in Picses now, maybe in 2200 years the December sun now rises in Capricorn.
Along with the phase shift of the constellations, the 26,000 year cycle also shifts the "north star". In 26,000 years from now, the north star will once again be Polaris. In the time of ancient Egypt, it was Vega IIRC.
Finally, the solar system orbits the center of the galaxy over something like 30 million years.
So as you can see, the precession of equinoxes has zero, nothing, nada, zilch, nil, abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with our position in the galaxy.
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