What is mercury retrograde?

Have you ever heard someone complain about how everything is going wrong because “mercury is in retrograde”? What is mercury retrograde? And, is there any truth to the idea that the planets affect us?

Typing “mercury retrograde” into Google leads me to several links to astrology and horoscope websites. For the scientific view of this subject, I had to reword what I was searching for and, after some scrolling, visited Mental Floss.

“When the planets are next to one another on the same side of the Sun, Mercury looks like it's moving east to those of us on Earth. But when Mercury overtakes Earth and continues its orbit, its straight trajectory seems to change course. According to Dr. Hammergren, it's just a trick of perspective. "Same thing if you were passing a car on a highway, maybe going a little bit faster than they are," he says. "They're not really going backwards, they just appear to be going backwards relative to your motion."’

So, no, Mercury doesn’t actually move backwards, Earth has just overtaken the planet’s path. In fact, all planets retrograde. It is the popularity of astrology which has linked Mercury’s retrograde with being an ill omen and, apparently, this belief has not faded over the years.

The planet is named after the Roman god, Mercury, who controlled traveling, finances and communication. So, the planet has been connected to ruling these qualities as well. According to astrologers, when the planet is not in retrograde, all is well. But if it goes backwards, you can expect all kinds of misfortune.

Why do so many people insists that there is an effect when Mercury goes retrograde? Aside from the prolonged belief, astronomer Dr Hammergren credits confirmation bias with keeping this myth alive. Confirmation bias is when a person credits a normal occurrence with supporting their belief, even if there may be no correlation at all. When a believer in astrology encounters a problem during Mercury retrograde, the planet is blamed for the misfortune. But if it isn’t Mercury retrograde and something goes wrong, it’s just a bad day.

Mercury will be in retrograde on March 5th through 28th, July 7th through August 2nd, and October 31st through November 20th. Will you encounter any bad luck? And, if you do, what will you blame it on?