Page:Astronomy for Everybody.djvu/57

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE SUN'S APPARENT PATH
33

imagined a line passing around the celestial sphere which the sun always followed in its annual course, and which was called the ecliptic. They noticed that the planets followed nearly but not exactly the same general course as the sun among the stars. A belt extending around on

Fig. 5.—The Orbit of the Earth and the Zodiac.

each side of the ecliptic, and broad enough to contain all the known planets, as well as the sun, was called the zodiac. It was divided into twelve signs, each marked by a constellation. The sun went through each sign in the course of a month and through all twelve signs in a year. Thus arose the familiar signs of the zodiac, which

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.