Today, Mercury enters retrograde. From July 17 to Aug. 10, Mercury will appear to move backward in the night sky. According to astrologers — who will be out in force — Mercury retrograde in 2025 will cause chaos. The ancient belief that the positioning of the stars and planets affects the way events occur on Earth has Mercury’s retrograde causing problems with communication, transport and technology.
It’s all absolute nonsense — and for reasons you might not expect — yet actually understanding Mercury in retrograde does reveal something exquisite about the solar system.
Here’s everything you need to know about Mercury’s retrograde motion in 2025.
What Is Mercury Retrograde?
Mercury retrograde occurs when Earth overtakes Mercury in its orbit, causing Mercury to appear to move backward in Earth’s sky. Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system and the one that is closest to the sun. It takes Mercury 88 days to orbit the sun once, while Earth takes 365 days. That’s just over four Mercury orbits in an Earth year. Thus, three or four times each Earth year, Mercury appears to travel backward across the sky — because Earth overtakes Mercury. Astronomers call the period where it appears to go backward apparent retrograde motion — or Mercury retrograde.
Mercury And Mythology
The ancient Greeks associated Mercury with the swift messenger of the gods, Hermes (the Roman Mercury). According to the European Southern Observatory, Hermes/Mercury was the god of translators and interpreters, served as a messenger for all the other gods, and ruled over wealth, good fortune, commerce, fertility, and thievery.
There you have it — the laundry list of what astrologers pretend that Mercury in retrograde affects in your life.
Can You Blame Mercury Retrograde?
Astrology is popular right now, but that doesn’t affect the truth about Mercury retrograde — it’s an optical illusion. Anything that happens to you in the next month or so connected to anything said to be related to Mercury’s apparent (not actual) movements is, of course, complete nonsense. Associating real-life consequences with a planet’s erratic movements would be strange — that mechanism doesn’t exist — but to Mercury, retrograde is not real.
Retrograde motion has no physical influence on Earth — it’s like blaming something on a rainbow. Worse, almost nobody who ever worries about Mercury retrograde has ever seen the planet with their own eyes — I’ve even been mistakenly told by a professional astronomer that Mercury is impossible to see with the naked eye (I’ve seen it well over a dozen times).
Mercury And The ‘Planetary Alignment’
Shortly after Mercury has exited retrograde, it will become visible in the pre-dawn sky as it moves away from the sun’s glare. Even better, it will form part of a pretty “planet parade.” Although often called a planetary alignment, the planets will appear in the same region of the sky but will not be precisely aligned in a straight line.
Best seen one hour before sunrise in the eastern sky, from Sunday to Wednesday, August 17-20, Saturn, Jupiter, Venus and Mercury will form a graceful arc in the pre-dawn sky across four consecutive mornings, with a waning crescent moon moving past them, getting slimmer each morning. The highlight will be on Aug. 20, when a 9% crescent moon appears very close to Venus.
Everything Is As Is Should Be
So if apparent retrograde motion sounds ominous — or maybe just confusing — rest assured that Mercury retrograde is neither rare nor dangerous. Despite the myths and mistakes that endure around the phenomenon, it’s nothing more than an optical illusion resulting from planetary motion.
There is no chaos. Everything is as it should be. Mercury retrograde is merely an optical illusion created by our changing perspective on Earth as we orbit the sun.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
