The planet’s apparent backward motion occurs for a few weeks about every four months. Here’s what’s really happening—and how astrology became a modern phenomenon.
From a fight with your spouse to a newly-broken part in your car, the planet closest to the sun is often blamed for life’s misfortunes, big and small.
Retrograde motion has captured sky-gazing humans’ attention for millennia. Today’s astrological interpretation of the planets’ motions trace deep roots to ancient tablets etched by early astronomers.Mercury isn’t actually moving backward in its orbit around the Sun. Retrograde motion is an optical illusion caused by all the planets moving at different speeds from one another. Carolyn Ernst
Those ancient astronomers etched astronomical diaries into clay tablets, describing the motion of the planets in detail—including how Mercury appeared to slow down and loop back on itself. The Babylonian astronomers also created formulas to predict where celestial bodies, including Mercury, would appear in the sky. “In Babylonia, the planets and the stars were viewed as manifestations of gods,” he adds.
“You’d have someone really powerful go to an astrologer and say, ‘I want to besiege a castle or attack my enemies, what’s a good time?’” says, director of the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. Astrology became popular in Europe as early as the 12th century, Campion says, and drew more enthusiasts after the mechanical printing press was invented in 1439. It had yet to be separated from astronomy as it is today.
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