![]() ![]() Laura Driessen (author provided) A well-known illusion From Astro’s view, it appears that I’m going backwards as he overtakes me. At the bottom we can see the side-on view. At the top we can see the top-down view of the oval. So we see them in retrograde approximately once a year as we whip around the Sun so much faster than they do.ĭiagram of me (Laura) and Astro running around the oval, this time from Astro’s perspective. The other planets are so far from the Sun and travelling so slowly compared to Earth that it’s almost like they’re standing still. Mars is in retrograde once every two years. This is what happens when we look up at the sky and see one of the outer planets in retrograde. But as he starts to pass me, it seems like I’m going backwards or left (retrograde) while he continues to run forwards to the right. At this moment it seems like we’re both going the same direction, to the right. ![]() He’s running around the oval and he starts catching me up from behind. Astro is definitely not a deep thinker, but let’s imagine for a moment that he is and think about what he sees as he runs around the oval. To work this out, we need to swap our perspective. The planets outside our orbit (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) also go into retrograde. The dwarf planet Ceres orbits between Mars and Jupiter. Diagram of the orbits of the planets (and dwarf planet Pluto) in the Solar System.
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