Take a look at everything you need to know about Mercury being in retrograde, including how you can harness its energy and what it means for you. Astrologers believe that during this perceived backwards motion, technology and communication could get disrupted, putting a damper on anyone's summer mood. Mercury retrograde is an optical illusion which means it looks as if the planet is moving backwards from our view here on earth. As usual in astronomy, the truth is always more mind-blowing than the fiction.What happens when Mercury is in retrograde and how does it affect us? Many astrology advocates believe that the retrograde motion triggers a cycle of misfortune – but what does it really mean? Mercury retrograde is observational proof for our understanding of how the solar system works, about the nature of reality. So, no, your gadgets are not going to malfunction, and there will be no communications problems because a planet appears to go backwards against a background of stars. Astrology therefore equates the planet with messages and communications technology. The planet Mercury is named after the Roman’s Messenger of the Gods. Astrologers are always hasty when it comes to star signs, oddly refusing to adjust for the reality of Earth’s slow precession that has rendered it utterly meaningless. Why is one observation-Mercury in retrograde-considered important only because it is astronomically accurate, but the other-where the Sun actually is in the sky-is not? The Sun is “in” (moving in front of the stars in the constellation of) Libra, which it entered on Octoand will leave on November 23 and cross into Scorpius. That astrology also gets the basic observations wrong seems even odder.
Astrology is all about giving meaning to line-of-sight observations. SkySafari So how significant is Mercury retrograde?įor your everyday life, it’s not.
Mercury and the sun are in Libra right now not Scorpius as astrologers pretend. And, no, Mercury’s gravitational pull has zero effect on us. That’s to say nothing about how celestial line-of-sight illusions could possibly have any impact on humans. What’s the mechanism for that? There isn’t one.
Nicolaus Copernicus made sense of Mercury’s retrograde motion-and that of the outer planets, too-back in 1543 with that heliocentric model. So Mercury retrograde is, in fact, the basis for nothing less than the scientific revolution. The other evidence is that both of the inner planets, Mercury and Venus, have phases as viewed from Earth. Why is Mercury retrograde important?Īstronomers and astrologers have long known that planets appear to go backwards, which is why planets acquired their name, which means “wanderers.” However, don’t underestimate its importance, for the sight of a planet appearing to go backwards is observational proof that the geocentric model-that everything in the night sky orbits Earth-is wrong, and that the heliocentric model is correct. Earth overtakes it and-hey presto-Mercury appears to go backwards for a short period. Mercury’s orbit of the Sun is elliptical, and when it comes close to Earth during its “inferior conjunction”-now-it slows down. Here’s an easy way to think about that a car traveling at 80 mph will appear to go backwards when viewed through the window of a passing car going at 90 mph.įor Mercury, it’s a little more complicated. They then appear to be moving backwards for a short time. SkySafari Why does Mercury appear to go backwards?įrom Earth we don’t get to witness complete orbits of planets because we’re on an orbit around the sun ourselves, but it has another effect each planet occasionally appears to go backwards for a few weeks, something called “apparent retrograde motion” by astronomers.Įarth is orbiting the Sun much faster than the outer planets, so occasionally overtakes them. Mercury's apparent retrograde motion from October 31 through November 20, 2019.
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