The Mystery of Retrograde Planets : Rise and Fall of Status through Retrograde Planets – Celebrities and Politicians by Vijay Dubey

Retrograde Planets

Retrogression of a planet is a very interesting subject and it is generally very less talked about, because there isnt any information available on retrograde planets except for few rare classical texts. I’ll try to explain retrogression in as much detail as I can since this is one of the questions followed by a lot of people which is rare for an astrological question.

To be clear, i’ll follow a question based approach so that it is easier for the readers.

What is retrogression?

Retrogression or Vakra as it is called in sanskrit, is the condition of a planet when a planet appears to move backwards. To understand this, consider the following situation:

Suppose you’re travelling in a car at the speed of 60 km per hour on a circular road, much like a racing track. And there is another car travelling at 100 km per hour on the same road. Now, let us say you both start at the same time from the same point on the road. You will see that the car will go ahead of you, because it is travelling at a faster speed than your car. It’ll go far and far away and overtake you again from behind after a while (because you’re travelling in a circle).

Thus, you see the car travelling ahead and ahead, cover a full circle, and overtake you from behind.

Now, suppose the person driving the other car applied brakes and the car reduces its speed to 20 km per hour. Now, your car will be the faster one and it will be you overtaking the other car. So, you will see yourself moving ahead and the other car being left behind. This is what retrogression is. When you overtake the other car, you see the car moving backwards and being left behind. The car is still moving ahead, but now because your speed is faster you are leaving behind the other car and so its position with respect to you is reducing in place of increasing.

This is how retrogression happens. When the speed of revolution of that planet changes with respect to the speed of revolution of earth, it gives the illusion of the planet moving backwards in sky. It is still moving forward, but the earth’s speed and movement makes it look like the planet is going back.
When does a planet become retrograde?

A planet becomes retrograde when it is far from the Sun. Now, before going into the astrological details, I would like to explain it astronomically to give you a clear picture.

When we talk about degrees in astrology, we are only talking about one dimension. For those who do not have a physics background, dimension is measure in a particular direction. If you measure length, it is one dimension. If you measure width, it is another dimension. And when you multiply both, you get the area which is a two-dimensional measurement. A dimension is measurement in one direction only.

So now, when we talk about degrees, we are measuring only one dimension. If you see the sun in the sky, the sun follows a specific curve in the sky. Everyday, the sun rises in the east, follows the same path in the sky, and sets in the west. That path is called the ecliptic. More or less, all planets appear on the ecliptic, because the solar system is set in a particular way and so the entire solar system including our Sun and all its planets appear on the same line.

The green line is the ecliptic on which all planets are located and when we say degree, a degree is nothing but a given length on that line. So If mercury is at 1 degree, and Venus is at 14 degree, which means they are so much distance apart on that line.

Also Review:

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Astro Secrets and Krishnamurti Padhdhati Volume 5: Retrograde Planets (KP) by M P Shanmugam

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