The Science Behind the Stars Written By Madison E. Goldberg
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f you’re a member of the TikTok Generation (Gen Z or Zoomers if you will), chances are you’ve been seeing a lot of content online about astrology lately. Astrology is no new concept–– in fact, it’s been around since approximately 2,400 years ago, in Babylon. So why are teens and college students suddenly so wrapped up in something so ancient? The hashtag “astrology” currently stands at 27 billion views on TikTok. Thousands of users on the platform read tarot cards for their collectives of followers, and others offer insight into celestial events that play a role in astrology. And the viewer base is growing rapidly. The zodiac signs are assumed to have come to be around 330 BCE, when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt. Both the Romans and 20 • Culture
the Egyptians believed in the divination of planets. Eventually, the Greeks wound up jumping on the bandwagon too. For a while, astrology and astronomy were considered one and the same, until Sir Isaac Newton calculated the skies and set numbers to space in the early 18th century. In a year and a half of uncertainty amid the pandemic, they looked to the stars for guidance. Aricka Croxton, a sophomore at Emerson College, says that she learned a lot about herself in the process. “I became especially interested in figuring out my whole birth chart, and my parents’ birth charts,” said Croxton. “I could see how it could be backed by science, because once you figure out your chart, it begins to make sense why you are the way you are,” said Croxton.
