Astrologers have a new planet to contend with - should we all be asking questions about our changed destinies, asks Shane Hegarty
When scientists this week announced the discovery of a 10th planet in the solar system, astrologers around the world must have clutched their crystals in dread.
How will it fit into the charts? More importantly, the 25 per cent of people who believe in astrology will be wondering how this might affect their lives. When planet 2003 UB313 is in the ascendant, should you take that job, will you meet that dark, handsome stranger or will you want to stay away from lawnmowers for a week?
It's time to call the Irish Astrological Association. Its mailbox is full. Perhaps its calculation of the number of calls it would receive were out by only, say, one planet, but it was enough to cause a problem.
Luckily, the genial astrologer Fergus Gibson is on hand to clarify the situation.
"It makes absolutely no difference," he says. "The way it is, there are millions of planets. The 12 signs of the zodiac are there because 12 is a mystical number. Remember the people who worked out astrology and all that were the ancient Greeks. They realised that certain planets in certain parts of the sky at certain times of the year were good for different things, like hunting. A full moon is a great time for fishing. But it was all very airy-fairy and mystical and people all looked for meaning for everything. But introducing new planets to the zodiac chart means absolutely nothing."
But should there not be a moratorium on horoscopes, a grounding of all astrologers, until they've figured out what impact this discovery might have?
"Sun-sign astrology is what you call the horoscopes that go into the papers, which let's face it is as about as important as eating crisps. Nobody in their right mind would be ruling their life by what they read on the back page of a magazine," says Gibson.
Astrologer and amateur astronomer Austin Byrne says they are still trying to understand the significance of Pluto, which was discovered in 1930, so it could take time to integrate 2003 UB313 (already nicknamed "Xena") into the charts. However, he points out that other planets were discovered at times of social change. Uranus arrived with the industrial revolution, Pluto with the atomic age. Should Xena or any other new planets lurking out there have us holding our breath?
"In my opinion, sensible astrologers wouldn't be rushing to include these new bodies into interpretation techniques," says Byrne. "They have to wait and see what might be associated with a discovery, what has meaning and significance."
Others are already investing a little more meaning into the new planet. The Daily Mail's highly-paid astrologer, Jonathan Cainer, was quick on the draw.
He's already had to redraw his charts to account for a couple of other large rocks found in recent years, he said this week, so he'll just do it again.
He expects that Xena will "help us all bring forth new facets to our personalities and develop talents that we never knew we had". Thanks to Xena, then, you may suddenly realise you're an ace basketball player.
Astrologers, though, have always been a canny breed, able to accommodate new planets each time they are discovered, so another one is likely to cause only a minor glitch in the charts. Sceptics already point out that since the earth's axis changes position every 2,000 years, the constellations have "moved" in the sky since Ptolemy drew up the original zodiac - so you were not born under the star sign you think you were. And besides all of that there's the small matter of how astrologers can suggest when you'll be lucky in love on a particular day, but not one managed to predict the Asian tsunami.
"You can't blame it all on fate and destiny," insists Fergus Gibson, before he heads off to do readings at the Dublin Horse Show.
"You make things happen for yourself. It would be grand if you could just blame everything on the stars."