Astrology is the belief that the positions of stars and planets at the moment you were born influence your personality and future. Someone who practices astrology, called an astrologer, might claim they can predict your romantic future or career success based on when you were born and where celestial objects were in the sky at that time.

Ancient civilizations developed astrology thousands of years ago when they noticed patterns in the night sky and tried to find meaning in them. Before modern science, people didn't understand what stars and planets actually were, so astrology seemed like a reasonable way to make sense of the world.

Today we know that astrology doesn't actually work. Scientists have tested its predictions many times, and they turn out to be no more accurate than random guessing. The stars and planets are enormously far away (the nearest star besides our sun is about 25 trillion miles away), and their gravity and light don't affect human personalities or life events in the ways astrologers claim.

Many people still enjoy reading their horoscopes (astrology predictions based on birth dates) for fun, the same way they might enjoy fortune cookies. But astronomy, the scientific study of stars and planets, is something quite different: it uses telescopes, mathematics, and the scientific method to understand what's really happening in space.