Bob Berman’s Strange Universe: Puzzlers: a baker’s dozen

April 2011: Test your knowledge with these cosmic brain teasers.

Contributed by Bob Berman

Published: February 21, 2011

Do you like challenges? Hearing amazing things you didn’t know? Then let me turn 13 astro-oddities into a contest.

Check out what our readers are saying!

Click here to view some of our reader comments now »

BRUCE VOGEL from HAWAII said:

Ophicuhus was one of the original 12 house systems....Libra's Zubeneschamali (northern claw) is the clue: Scoripus had claws but was way too large so it was divided into two houses: Scoripus and Libra. This left Ophicuhus as the 13th house. Can't have 13, so.....

CRAIG WILLIAM from said:

Why don't astrologers change their "system" to reflect 13 constellations ? I suppose it shows how much attention they actually pay to the heavens.

EDWARD PELTZER III from CALIFORNIA said:

One out of thirteen, OUCH!!! Send me back to the minors. And even that is a gift as I had to look up the spelling of Ophiuchus.

On the other hand, there is an iPad / iPhone app called Star Walk that is great fun for showing our astrological friends that the Sun isn't where they think it is (relative to the constellations). And that isn't an April Fool joke.

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