The zodiac is a group of twelve constellations.
Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, and Aquarius.
They comprise a band of the sky through which the Sun travels.
The Sun’s apparent path through the zodiac is called the ecliptic.
If you imagine being able to see the Sun and stars at the same time, you would see the Sun moving through each of the zodiac’s constellations over the course of the year.
When we say that we are a Gemini, or a Virgo, or a Scorpio, we are referring to the zodiacal constellation where the Sun would appear on the day we were born.
Zodiac signs, however, belong to the study of astrology, or how the stars supposedly effect our lives, which has nothing to do with astronomy, or the study of the universe.
The word zodiac comes from the Latin word “zōdiacus”, which comes from the Greek word “ζῳδιακὸς κύκλος”, zōdiakos kuklos, which means “circle of animals”.
