Reports are swirling about a skew of the Zodiac signs and the addition of a 13th sign. There’s talk of a change in the Earth’s alignment. Twitter is all a-twitter, and news sources nationwide have jumped on the bandwagon.

The Earth is unaligned?! The Zodiac is wrong?! What does this all mean??

Relax, say local astrologists. It’s all a big misconception.

It all boils down to this: there are two systems of astrology, and somebody confused the two. So don’t worry--your zodiac sign isn’t changing; you don’t need to change your daily e-mail horoscope subscription.

Parke Kunkle, a member of the Minnesota Planetarium Society, recently caused a small media uproar when he stated that due changes with the earth’s alignment in relation to the constellations, many of the zodiac signs have changed.

Not quite, say astrologers.

“It’s been going on forever,” says Laurie A. Baum, certified astrologer based in Encinitas. “We orbit the sun, and our solar system moves through space. Because our solar system moves through space, we move a small amount over many millennia.” Both Kunkle and Baum agree on this point. It’s called the precession of the equinox.

But where the confusion comes is that there are two different astrology systems based on the same constellations: the Western system and the Vedic system.

The Vedic, or Hindu, system of astrology looks at the position of the earth and the constellations. This type of astrology is mostly studied in India. It charts the movement of the earth in relationship to all of the stars.

“It is accurate, and so is Western astrology,” says Baum. “Western astrology is based on the sun and the earth.”

In Western astrology, what sign you are is not based on the position of constellations—but rather, the position of the earth in relation to the sun. The Western zodiac sign--and their beginning and end dates--are based on the ring of constellations that are visible along the ecliptic, or path of the sun over the course of a year.

“There’s a 360-degree ring around the earth,” says Baum. “The confusion is how to calculate the beginning and end points. There are two different ways of calculating it—one from the position of the earth, and one from the position of the solar system as a whole.”

Baum relates it to standing on a mountaintop versus standing at the base of a mountain and watching a sunset. “You’re looking at the same thing from a different point of view, but nothing changes,” she says. While the constellations are the same in both Western and Vedic astrology, the measuring points vary.

“The biggest misconception is that the signs of [Western] astrology have anything to do with the stars, says Kevin B. Burk, a San Diego-based author and astrologer. “They don’t.” Western astrology looks at the relationship of the earth to the sun—not the position of the earth in relation to the constellations.

What the astronomer Kunkle didn’t acknowledge in his comments is that there are two systems. He was referring to the Vedic system and not the Western system of astrology.

So, while the constellations for which the zodiac signs are named share the same name within the two systems, what sign you are is not affected.

Or, as Burk put it, “Think of it as the difference between Celsius and Farenheit. It’s two different reference points.”

As to the talk of a 13th zodiac sign, this is referring to the constellation Ophiuchus, the 13th constellation that crosses the ecliptic.

According to Burk, “Because the zodiac signs have the same names as 12 of the 13 constellations that cross the ecliptic, there’s this confusion among people.”

The constellation has always been there, yet the ancient Greek astrologers created the zodiac system with 12 signs only, and this is the system astrologists have used ever since. There are no plans to change Western astrology.

So, regardless of what the uproar is all about, fear not, say astrologists, who say an urban myth like this crops up every 20 years or so. “All is well,” says Baum. “You’re still the same sign.”