TRANSIT OF MERCURY,
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — For the first time in 10 years, Mercury passed directly between the Earth and sun on Monday, resembling a black dot against the vast, glowing face of our star.
Many stargazers turned to the Internet as NASA provided close-to-real-time images of the 71⁄ 2- hour trek, courtesy of the Solar Dynamics Observatory.
Members of the Victoria chapter of the Royal Astronomical Society set up telescopes on Mount Tolmie Monday morning, where they and other residents enjoyed the spectacle through telescopes and filters.
Although the solar system’s small, innermost planet appeared to be trudging along, it was zooming past the sun at 39 kilometres per second.
The cosmic show — which began at 4:12 a.m. PDT — also was visible from the eastern U.S. and Canada, as well as Western Europe, western Africa and most of South America. Those places were privy to the entire event. The audience grew as the sun rose across North America, revealing Mercury’s relatively rare transit.
In Eastern Europe, the Middle East, central Asia and most of Africa, sunset had the curtain coming down early. Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea missed out altogether.
NASA warned spectators to use high-powered binoculars or telescopes equipped with special filters to protect their eyes from the glaring sun. Eclipse glasses were useless for spotting 4,879-kilometre-wide Mercury as it crossed the one-million-km diameter of the sun.
A transit of Mercury occurs about 13 times a century. The next one won’t occur until 2019.
“What happens during a transit is really all about perspective,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s planetary science division who viewed his first transit of Mercury 46 years ago.
He said scientists took advantage of Monday’s transit to learn more about Mercury’s extremely thin atmosphere.