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All planets are direct at the start of 2024, from late January to April. Here are the dates of the retrograde-free period and what to know.
The more distant planets retrograde more frequently, as they do not move as much in their orbits while Earth completes an orbit itself. The retrograde motion of a hypothetical extremely distant (and nearly non-moving) planet would take place during a half-year, with the planet's apparent yearly motion being reduced to a parallax ellipse.
If this system forms planets, the inner planets will likely orbit in the opposite direction to the outer planets. [33] WASP-17b was the first exoplanet that was discovered to be orbiting its star opposite to the direction the star is rotating. [34] A second such planet was announced just a day later: HAT-P-7b. [35]
On a prograde planet like Earth, the stellar day is shorter than the solar day. At time 1, the Sun and a certain distant star are both overhead. At time 2, the planet has rotated 360 degrees and the distant star is overhead again but the Sun is not (1→2 = one stellar day).
The planet will reach opposition on Sept. 21, around the time when it is closest to the Earth, but any cloud-free night will be optimal for spotting the planet after dark.
On Feb. 28, 2025, all planets will be on the same side of the sun for a great planetary alignment. On Aug. 29, 2025, there will be a planetary alignment of six planets: Mercury, Venus, Jupiter ...
The planet Mercury is especially susceptible to Jupiter's influence because of a small celestial coincidence: Mercury's perihelion, the point where it gets closest to the Sun, precesses at a rate of about 1.5 degrees every 1,000 years, and Jupiter's perihelion precesses only a little slower. At one point, the two may fall into sync, at which ...
The naked eye planets, which include Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, will not all become visible in Tennessee until around 5 a.m. Central Time, since Mercury and Jupiter are very low in the sky.