Mercury's retrograde begins today; happening at least three times a year

Today is the beginning of Mercury in retrograde and the cycle lasts through May 14, 2023. This is the second time Mercury has been retrograde in 2023.

Happening about every 3 months, the planet Mercury has a retrograde cycle. From our perspective here on Earth, Mercury revolves around the Sun and appears to go retrograde, or moves backwards, three, and sometimes four, times a year.

Mercury is the closest planet to our Sun in this solar system. Therefore, the time it takes for Mercury to revolve around the Sun is almost 88 Earth days – quite swift! Mercury revolves around the Sun a little more than 4 times for every time Earth revolves completely around the Sun (1 year or 365 days).

Based on Roman history, Mercury was named after the Roman messenger god, Mercury, who was known to oversee transportation and communication. To the Greeks, this god was known as Hermes.

From Roman and Greek history, Mercury is the planet in charge of communication, and we can often hear from astrologers about paying close attention to our interactions with others during the retrograde periods.

From our perspective here on Earth, every planet has a retrograde period. When planets are brightest depending on the time of year, we can view them moving west to east, known as prograde according to NASA.

However, when a faster-moving planet catches up to a slower moving planet due to the elliptical shape of their orbit and how close they are to the Sun, we can see from Earth that planet moving in a retrograde or backward motion. From our point of view on Earth, they would be moving from east to west.