Courtesy Science Alert
Earth is about to experience spectacular meteor showers as it moves through the tail of Halley’s Comet, at the start of May we’re also going to be able to watch the littlest planet Mercury travel in front of the Sun.
Because Mercury’s orbit is so tight, its transit is more common than the twice-in-a-century transit of Venus. But it’s still a rare event, and the planet won’t travel between our star and planet again for another three and a half years.
The transit of Mercury occurs when Mercury passes between the Sun and Earth and happens around 13 or 14 times each century. This year the event kicks off on May 9 just after 7am EDT (9pm AEST, 11am UTC), with the planet taking around 8 hours to make its glorious way across the Sun.
The good news is that the entire event will be visible to those on North America’s east coast, as well as most of South America, Western Europe and the west coast of Africa. And stargazers in western Asia and western North America will also be able to see part of the transit.
The event can be viewed online and in some continents, stargazers can view the entire transit.
If you plan to watch the rare event you will need a telescope, and a solar filter because Mercury is going to look quite tiny compared to the Sun. You may also need some magnification to view it clearly.
