The path of Mercury’s planetary transit is seen in a NASA conceptual image, made of many images captured by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) during the last Mercury transit in 2006.
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Mercury is now making a transit across the face of the sun, the first time it’s done so since 2012.
When the transit begins at 7:12 a.m. EDT, Mercury – a small scorching planet just over 3,000 miles in diameter -will appear as a small black dot crossing the edge of the sun.
This time the sojourn of Mercury between our blue planet and our star lasts from 1112 GMT until 1842 GMT.
Only parts of the event can be observed in the rest of North and South America, the eastern Pacific, the remainder of Africa and Asia; while east, southeast Asia and Australia will miss the event entirely. You can watch the event first-hand through a telescope if you have the proper solar filters. NASA will be streaming the transit live on NASA TV and its Facebook page.
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This occurs only when the Sun, Mercury and the Earth are lined up in one plane.
“It is too small to see with the naked eye and as soon as you magnify the sun it becomes even more unsafe”. It occurs in May and November.
The event is free and they’ll have solar telescopes available to share.
Mercury completes one lap around the sun every 88 days, so the little planet crosses the plane of Earth’s orbit every 44 days – once while moving “up” and again while coming back “down”.
As the planet makes its “leisurely journey across the face of the sun”, it will appear 1/158 the size of the sun, according to NASA.
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It was originally thought some objects like the moon and Mercury did not have their own atmospheres, but now scientists understand that they have ultrathin layers of gases around them, which become apparent during transit events.
