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Mercury in retrograde?
Does Mercury exhibit either true retrograde motion or apparent retrograde motion?
I know that outer planets exhibit apparent retrograde motion from Earth passing them up on the inside track. What about inner planets. Venus has its own true retrograde rotation, but unrelated to this, do either Venus or Mercury exhibit true or apparent retrograde?
Any good diagrams showing this, and where the Earth would be relative to the planet in retrograde?
4 Answers
- Anonymous6 years agoFavorite Answer
Yes, there IS an astronomical significance and yes, both Mercury and Venus have apparent retrograde motion from the perspective of observers on Earth when the Earth catches up to ads passes an inner planet. Rotation rates and the rate of revolution around the Sun are NOT correlated. Jupiter Day is less than 10 hours long, but it still takes Jupiter 11.86 years to go around the Sun ONE time.
"...Mercury moves faster than the Earth as it travels around the Sun; however, Mercury has a highly elliptical orbit, so the speed of its orbit changes. When Mercury is furthest from the Sun, it’s at the slowest point in its orbit, and this gives the Earth a chance to “catch up”. Imagine you’re driving next to a car in the freeway which is speeding up and slowing down. It’s still going down the highway at a high speed, but it seems to be going back and forth compared to you. When this happens, astronomers say that Mercury is in retrograde.
Astrologers seem to think that retrograde motion is an unlucky or bad situation because it goes against a planet’s natural movements. Of course, the planet isn’t really changing its motions at all, it’s only our perspective of the planet that’s changing. Furthermore, at any one time, 40% of the outer planets are in retrograde motion anyway. Something’s almost always in retrograde.
Is Mercury in retrograde right now? It depends on the date. Check the list of dates below to check.
So when is Mercury going to be in retrograde? Here are some Mercury retrograde dates for the next few years.
Mercury Retrograde 2009
January 11-31
May 6-20
September 6-29
December 26-January 15, 2010
Mercury Retrograde 2010
April 17-May 11
August 20 – September 12
December 10-December 29
Mercury Retrograde 2011
March 30-April 23
August 2 – August 26
November 23 – December 13
Mercury Retrograde 2012
March 11-April 4
July 14 – August 7
November 6 – November 26..."
http://www.universetoday.com/22135/mercury-retrogr...
its really hard to find an image on the Internet that demonstrates either the retrograde motion of mercury or venues online. Yes the source of this image IS from astrology web-site, but it HAS dates on the image for when Venus had retrograde motion. Orcus is real dwarf planet. please try to ignore what is irrelevant.
http://www.lunarplanner.com/HCpages/Synodic-Orcus-...
Image source:
- 6 years ago
Very briefly - on the order of a couple of days, just before it disappears over the Sun's disk.
