Mercury is a little known, still mysterious planet.
But one thing is certain. Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, cannot go backwards, and does not touch Earth. The idea of ​​Mercury retrograde, a common reference in astrology when communication and mobility are temporarily disrupted, can, in fact, be a happy sing-along. The event occurs when Mercury appears to begin moving in a different direction across the sky.
But this is a trick of understanding. Mercury retrograde obvious movementlike when you pass a speeding car on the road and the car is seen backing up. It is not a rare event, or a milestone.
“There’s nothing unusual about it,” said Tansu Daylan, a physicist at Washington University in St. Louis. Louis, who is leading NASA’s telescope experiment, told Mashable.
A NASA scientist viewed the first images of Voyager. What he saw made him cold.
It happens often – three or four times a year – that some people easily associate events such as misunderstandings or travel problems with the event. “People want to connect with people,” said Daylan. It recently started again on Nov. 25, 2024.
What causes Mercury retrograde
From our point of view, the planets, including Mercury, move from west to east in the night sky, relative to the stars. In fact, Greek and Roman astronomers called the planets “wandering stars.”
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If, hypothetically, you were to look at the sun from above, you would see the planets rotating counterclockwise. This creates an easterly motion, from our position on Earth. But this changes when the two planets align as they orbit the sun, Daylan emphasized. Then, the inner planet (Mercury) moves faster than the outer planet (like Earth), resulting in “apparent retrograde motion” – it’s obvious because Mercury, speeding around our star at more than 100,000 mph, does not immediately start going backwards.
The NASA graphic below shows the apparent motion of the retrograde, using Mars and Earth. The appearance of a planet in the sky can change when the planets align or one “passes” the other, but the orbits do not change.
Demonstration of reverse motion.
Credit: NASA
The southern hemisphere of Mercury, as captured by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft.
Credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Carnegie Institution of Washington
Mercury retrograde lasts for several weeks at a time, so don’t be surprised to hear how it is connected to a number of events.
Although we know that Mercury’s orbit does nothing unusual in our solar system throughout the year, it will remain a world of mystery. It is a planet that is difficult to observe from Earth, due to its proximity to the sun. “That means it can be seen for a while just before sunrise and after sunset, and it is always visible near the horizon,” explains the European Space Agency. In addition, it is very challenging to reach – any spacecraft that tries there must fight the sun’s gravity. This is why Mercury is less visited than other inner planets. Also, it is dangerous to get too close to Mercury because the planet’s hot surface, hot enough to melt lead, releases heat into the atmosphere. The ongoing work of BepiColombo, a joint effort between Europe and Japan, is designed to withstand these extreme conditions as it creates flies that have never been seen before.
Planetary scientists hope to soon answer many questions about Mercury: Is there water? Does it work nationally? How did it get so close to the sun?
But, at least, its dramatic movements are well understood.
“There’s nothing sweet about it,” Daylan said.
This story has been updated with more information about Mercury retrograde.
