What exactly is Mercury retrograde?

You often see this kind of statement on the Internet: Mercury retrograde is going to happen in a certain period of time, please pay attention. What is Mercury retrograde? Why should everyone be careful? In fact, it has something to do with Mercury, one of the planets in the solar system.

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We all know that there are eight planets in the solar system, but did you know that five of them can be seen with the naked eye? They are: Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn. These planets were discovered and recorded in prehistoric times. The ancient Chinese believed in the Five Elements Theory, believing that the world is made up of five elements: gold, wood, water, fire and earth. The names of the five planets also come from this.

Mercury always appears at sunrise or sunset and was originally called the Star of the Morning Star. More than 2,000 years ago, Sima Qian, a historian of the Western Han Dynasty, discovered through actual observation that the Star of the Morning Star was gray. The Five Elements Theory believed that black belonged to water, so he called the Star of the Morning Star Mercury.

Of course, the ancients observed the celestial bodies with their naked eyes and obtained some specious understandings based on their simple knowledge of nature and associations.

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The ancient Westerners were the same. Western astrology has been around for a long time. It believes that celestial bodies, especially planets and constellations, predict the changes of all things in the world in some way. "Mercury retrograde" is a conclusion in astrology. The full name of "Mercury retrograde" is "Mercury retrograde". Whenever Mercury retrograde occurs, it means that people may encounter bad things.

This view comes from the observation of the stars. Ancient astrologers observed that Mercury would go retrograde every three to four months in a year, for about twenty days each time. Mercury is called Mercury in the West, and is the messenger god in ancient Roman legend, responsible for the transmission and communication of all information. Therefore, astrologers believe that "Mercury retrograde" will cause document errors, information loss, mechanical failures and various details. This is the origin of Mercury retrograde. However, from an astronomical perspective, this view is obviously unscientific.

In the solar system, all planets orbit the sun in the same direction, that is, counterclockwise from west to east. The reason why people observe Mercury's retrograde motion is actually caused by the rotation of the earth and the change in the relative position of the earth and Mercury.

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We know that both the Earth and Mercury revolve around the Sun. Mercury's orbit is closer to the Sun than the Earth's, so it only takes 88 days to orbit the Sun, while the Earth is farther away from the Sun and takes 365 days to orbit the Sun. This is like two people running on different tracks, with Mercury running fast in the inner circle and the Earth running slowly in the outer circle. Before Mercury catches up with the Earth, it moves forward; after catching up, it looks like it is running backward, and it is retrograde. But in fact, Mercury is always moving forward and is not retrograde. The illusion is that the Earth is used as a reference. If the Sun is used as a reference, there is no so-called Mercury retrograde.

Therefore, Mercury retrograde is just an erroneous association caused by an incorrect observation in Western astrology. Everyone may encounter bad times, but this has nothing to do with the movement of Mercury.

Source: CCTV Science and Education

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