Prograding or retrograding?

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/Movies /C3mar99/C3mar99.mov

is the planet prograding or retrograding?

and how do i know for certain that the object is a planet and not something else?

astronomy gives me the heebie jeebies

I can't get the link to work and I have no idea what you are talking about.

me neither.....

oh no :( i dont know how to fix it. its pretty interesting...maybe try copy/paste? dang it!

The earth has a prograde orbit - meaning that it orbits the sun counterclockwise when the solar system is viewed from the pole star Polaris. It also has a prograde spin, meaning is spins counterclockwise around its rotation axis. Most planets exhibit prograde motion around their spin axes and when orbiting the sun. Retrograde means a clockwise spin - exhibited by Venus and Uranus. Some extraplanetary bodies (comets, asteroids) have a retrograde orbit around the sun.

Planets, by definition:
 - orbit the sun
 - are large enough to have their own gravitational field
 - said gravitational field is large enough to clear the immediate area of other objects

For example - the earth orbits the sun, is large enough that is has its own gravitational field, and has cleared the area around it of other objects (asteroids, etc). The Asteroid Belt, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, does orbit the sun but each individual asteroid does not have a large enough gravitational field to clear the surrounding area of other objects. Hence why this belt consists of a whole mass of debris and is not consolidated into something that would be considered a planet, by definition.

Keep in mind that many astronomical definitions are arbitrary and are based on parameters that "make the theories work"

Edited to add: I couldn't get the link to work, so maybe this wasn't the answer you were looking for at all! Hope it helped though :)