Sky events

Mercury retrograde

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The useful word for Mercury retrograde is revision, not disaster. From December 22, 2029 to January 11, 2030, the planet appears to retrace its path in Capricorn, bringing messages, decisions, routes, and the way an idea is understood back for a more deliberate look.

Pre-shadow begins
December 4, 2029 · 23:16 UTC
Stations retrograde
December 22, 2029 · 05:50 UTC
Stations direct
January 11, 2030 · 05:45 UTC
Post-shadow ends
January 30, 2030 · 15:51 UTC
Entirely within
Capricorn

The station times are NASA JPL's, from its DE441 ephemeris.

When it happens

Mercury turns retrograde

Exact at

  • Mercury turns retrograde
  • Mercury turns direct

Times are shown in UTC until this page reads your device’s time zone. The zone stays on your device.

Retrograde motion is an effect of perspective as planets move at different speeds, while the astrological tradition uses the interval for return and revision. In the December 22, 2029 to January 11, 2030 cycle, Capricorn directs the review toward responsibility, structure, and the long game behind a visible result. The advantage is comparison, revision, and a better question.

The caution for this Mercury cycle is speed, assumption, and words doing more work than the agreement can support. Between December 22, 2029 and January 11, 2030, reread the terms and confirm what each person means; use a second pass to improve a choice rather than assuming every delay carries a message.

Reading confidence 40%. This reading uses the sky alone. Your own chart, with a birth time and place, makes a reading more specific.

Questions to carry

  • Which part of messages, decisions, routes, and the way an idea is understood would benefit from a thoughtful second pass during this Mercury cycle?
  • What could you reread the terms and confirm what each person means before calling the matter settled on January 11, 2030?

In the real sky

From Earth, Mercury seems to slow down, stop and drift backward against the stars for a few weeks. Nothing about its orbit changes: Mercury, on a faster inside track, overtakes Earth, and the view from a moving planet makes it look like a reversal.

The start and the end are stations, the days the planet seems to stand still before it turns. Those are the moments counted down here.

What to look for

  • Mercury stays close to the Sun and is hard to see for most of a retrograde. In the evenings before it turns, it can sometimes be found low in the west after sunset; it passes between Earth and the Sun in the middle of the cycle and comes back low in the east before sunrise.

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Around this date

Keep following

Behind this eventExact times, positions, sources, and method
Retrograde station
2029-12-22T05:50:36.000Z
Direct station
2030-01-11T05:45:29.000Z
Pre-shadow begins
2029-12-04T23:16:03.774Z
Post-shadow ends
2030-01-30T15:51:33.445Z
Ecliptic longitude
287.71° · 17°42′ Capricorn
Fact source
sky.json, generated 2026-09-30
Derived for display
station signs and degrees read from the engine at the committed instants
Derived for display
exact stations from NASA JPL Horizons (DE441), src/data/nasa-event-instants.json; the engine catalog gave 2029-12-22T05:49:50.917Z and 2030-01-11T05:44:27.919Z

The times of planet ingresses, stations and aspects come from NASA JPL's DE441 ephemeris, read through its Horizons service. Other instants and the positions come from the site's astronomy engine and its committed yearly and monthly sky catalogs, the same data behind the Almanac and the daily horoscopes. Times are universal time; in the Americas an instant can fall the evening before the date printed. Sign-by-sign notes, where present, use whole-sign solar houses. The readings are a tradition being applied, not a forecast. The methodology page sets out both halves.