Pluto turns retrograde
- Input
- ♇ 2026-05-06 15:44Z
- Expected output
- 5°31′ ♒
Lasts 162 days, longer than any other retrograde of the year.
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retrograde planets 2026
In 2026 seven planets have a station retrograde and Mars has none: it only starts its next retrograde on January 10, 2027. Venus, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto and Mercury overlap in the second half of the year, and the tool points to the days with the most retrograde planets at once.
Lasts 162 days, longer than any other retrograde of the year.
Moves back only 2.8 degrees in over five months.
Stations direct on December 10 at 7°56′.
The only Venus retrograde in 2026.
Still December 12 in both Brazil and the US.
The panel at the top answers with the current phase. Retrograde means Mercury's ecliptic longitude is decreasing at this moment, between the station retrograde and the station direct. If it has not reached the station retrograde yet but has passed the degree where it will station direct, it is in the pre-shadow: still moving direct, and the panel shows when the retrograde starts. After the station direct comes the post-shadow, until it returns to the degree of the station retrograde. Outside those spans the motion is plain direct. In 2026 Mercury has three retrogrades: February 26 to March 20, June 29 to July 23, and October 24 to November 13, and on those dates New York and Brasília show the same day.
On October 18 there are four: Venus, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, with Mercury in the pre-shadow. On October 24, after Mercury's station, there are five: Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Pluto turns direct on October 15 and Jupiter only starts moving backward in December.
No. Mars repeats its retrograde every 780 days, about 26 months. The last one ended in February 2025 and the next runs from January 10 to April 1, 2027, from 10°26′ Virgo to 20°56′ Leo. That makes all of 2026 direct motion for it.
Because Earth overtakes them every 367 to 399 days, and that overtaking creates the apparent backward motion. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto have 367 to 370 days between retrogrades, Saturn 378 and Jupiter 399. Jupiter, at 399 days between retrogrades, sometimes goes through a whole calendar year without a station retrograde, as happens in 2027.
Yes, the tool's table shows the sign, degree and arcminute of each milestone. In 2026: Mercury in Pisces, Cancer and Scorpio; Venus in Scorpio and Libra; Saturn and Neptune in Aries; Uranus in Taurus and Gemini; Pluto in Aquarius; Jupiter in Cancer and Leo.
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