Mercury in retrograde: What it really means. For people of the astrological persuasion, few planetary trends are as noteworthy as Mercury in retrograde. As the solar system's smallest planet appears to reverse through the sky, you'll hear it blamed for a wealth of frustrating situations, including overspending on new purchases, poorly planned work pitches and unimpressive first dates. The common astrological advice for people during Mercury retrograde is to avoid starting anything new and to focus instead on reassessment, mimicking the way the planet appears to be retracing its own movements. In 2. 01. 6, Mercury retrograde will occur four times, totaling about 8.

Traditionally, Mercury is the planet of alchemy. During its retrograde periods, circumstances that are occuring help us make necessary changes and, in some cases. Retrograde motion is motion in the direction opposite to the movement of something else and the contrary of direct or prograde motion. This motion can be the orbit of. Find out when Mercury will be retrograde during 2017 with dates for four retrograde periods from The Old Farmer's Almanac. Apparent retrograde motion is the apparent motion of a planet in a direction opposite to that of other bodies within its system, as observed from a particular vantage. When Mercury is in retrograde, its influence depends on which of the 12 zodiac signs the planet is in when it goes retrograde. Below is a brief look at what to expect.

That is a lot of time for reassessment. Astronomers tend to disagree with these associations.

Mercury In Retrograde 2017

However, if a person were able to trace Mercury's position during retrograde - - which is a challenge, because the sun blocks our view - - they'd end up with a line that changes direction. This is because Mercury retrograde is an optical illusion resulting from our position (on Earth) relative to Mercury. The term . While some objects in space do experience true retrograde motion - - Venus spins about its axis in the opposite direction than the other planets, a situation called retrograde spin - - Mercury's backtracking is an issue of perspective. Its orbit is smaller and faster than Earth's.

When its orbit catches up to and passes Earth, it creates the illusion that Mercury is backtracking, astronomers say. Put more plainly, pretend you're Earth, watching Mercury run around a track. As it runs its loop, it will start out moving from the left side of your field of vision to your right.

Then, it rounds the corner and, although not moving backward, is now running from right to left. This analogy is oversimplified because it doesn't take into account the fact that Earth is also moving, but it gives a good idea of how this optical illusion plays out. All of the planets exhibit apparent retrograde motion, although it plays out slightly differently for planets farther from the sun than Earth versus those, like Mercury, that are closer to the sun than Earth. Pseudo planetary effects As for the potential influence of this seemingly odd movement on our daily lives, science doesn't back it up. Gribbinpredicted that the alignment of all of the planets and the sun on the same side of the Earth would have catastrophic effects.

James Zimbelman, a geologist at the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, said this prediction actually prompted some scientists to look into the magnitude of the gravitational effects of planetary objects on Earth. Mars' apparent retrograde motion is the most obvious of the retrogrades because people can easily view Mars in the night sky as it is the closest planet and, unlike Mercury and Venus, doesn't require a person to look at the sun in order to observe it. This apparent retrograde motion garners much more notice from educational sources. Of the three experts contacted by Live Science, all three considered Mercury retrograde fairly unworthy of discussion. Naval Observatory, wrote in an email to Live Science. Mercury is no exception. There is no story here.

About once every 1. Mercury is passing Earth, everything lines up just right, and Mercury crosses in front of the sun from our point of view on Earth. This is called the transit of Mercury and occurred again on May 9. Original article on Live Science.