Mercury Spotting
Can you spot the planet?
The diminutive disk of Mercury, the solar system's
innermost planet,
spent about five hours crossing in front of the enormous solar disk
yesterday (Wednesday, May 7th),
as
viewed from the general vicinity of planet Earth.
The Sun was above the horizon during
the entire transit for observers
in Europe, Africa, Asia, or Australia, and the horizon was
certainly
no problem for the sun-staring SOHO spacecraft.
Seen as a dark spot,
Mercury progresses from left to right
(top panel to bottom) in these four images from SOHO's extreme
ultraviolet camera.
The panels' false-colors correspond to different wavelengths in
the extreme ultraviolet which highlight regions above the Sun's
visible surface.
This
is the first
of 14 transits of Mercury which
will occur during the 21st
century,
but the next similar event will be a
transit
of Venus in June of 2004.
Need help spotting Mercury?
Just click on the picture.