Wednesday 30/August/2023 – 11:36 PM
The planet Uranus began its retrograde motion, and its usual eastward motion apparently stopped in front of the constellations in the zodiacal circle, and turns to moving west instead, and this continues until late January 2024, according to the Astronomical Society in Jeddah.
Planet Uranus begins its retrograde motion
The association said in a statement: This reversal in direction is a phenomenon that all the outer planets in the solar system go through periodically, a few months before they reach the encounter.
The retrograde motion was known to the ancient observers, and they were baffled because they could not reconcile it with models in which the planets moved in regular circular orbits around the Earth, as they believed.
And the planets always move in the same direction, and they do not move backwards, but what happens is that the earth during its rapid movement, in its small orbit around the sun, passes by one of those outer planets. Months.
It is observed in the sky at dawn
And the planet Uranus will be observed by the telescope in the dawn sky, as it will rise above the horizon before midnight local time, and will apparently die near Jupiter, and reach the highest point above the southeastern horizon, before fading with the onset of dawn.
During the following weeks, Uranus will reach its highest point in the sky 4 minutes earlier each night, and it will gradually become visible in the evening sky, as well as in the predawn sky as it approaches opposition.
It is mentioned that the planet Earth will be between Uranus and the sun, in mid-November 2023, then Uranus will be in a state of convergence, and it will rise with sunset and remain visible throughout the night, and set with sunrise the next day, so the convergence period is ideal during the year to see the planet through the telescope.
