People with telescopes and solar filters will see Mercury as a tiny black dot moving across the sun’s face. Planet Mercury will pass between Earth and the sun, which happens once in a decade. This type of transit occurs about 13 times each century.
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Mercury orbits the sun every 88 days, “so you’d think it (a transit) wouldn’t be incredibly rare”, said Thomas Willmitch, ISU Planetarium director.
Guwahati: With three astronomical telescopes, Guwahati Planetarium will present Monday’s rare celestial phenomenon, the “transit of Mercury“, live to the people of the city.
Speaking about the event, Dr Das informed that it will be a mega cosmic occasion when planet Mercury will be seen on transit across the Sun. When the Mercury Transit happens, the Earth becomes closer to one of the two points that is ascending or descending node in its orbit.
Watch it in real time on NASA’s transit website or the European Space Agency’s live stream.
Mercury is set in a tilted orbital plane compared to our own, which stands as the root cause for the rarity of the planetary transfer that is known to occur 13 to 14 times each century, usually during the months of May or November.
“When the planet is nearly tangent to the disk, there is a black join between the black edge of the sun and the black edge of the planet”, he said. In case of a transit, the Mercury or Venus don’t cover the Sun wholly or partially but look like a small black dot on its disc.
“The Transit of Mercury reminds us that all of the planets, including Earth, are in rapid and perpetual motion”, Slooh host, Paul Cox said in a statement. You also may watch the event online, including at NASA.gov. So for our planets to line up just so for us to see the other world sweep over the sun is an uncommon event.
Now, they provide scientists an opportunity to study the planets’ exospheres – the thin layer of gases that make up their atmosphere. It can be seen with powerful binoculars or a telescope, but only one equipped with proper solar filters.
“You think I’m going to miss this?”
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In Luxembourg, the local Amateur Astronomers’ association is organising a public observation of the Mercury Transit at “Ribeschpont” school, at 1pm, only in clear sky conditions.
