The Mercury Transit: Why Scientists Are Excited; Peak Times, Viewing Precautions and How to Watch the Live Stream
Today, starting at 7:12 a.m. EDT (5:56 a.m. PDT on the West Coast), Mercury can be seen as a small dot in front of the sun as it traverses the path it takes only 13 times in a century. The last time the tiniest planet in the solar system took this route was in 2006. The rarity of the event is explained by the fact that the earth, the sun, and mercury infrequently achieve the perfect alignment which would allow sighting of the transit---the eclipse-like crossing of the sun's face by a planet.
Being so small, Mercury can only be seen "as a tiny black dot as it glides in front of the sun's blazing disk over a period of seven and a half hours," according to NASA, which will be livestreaming (on NASA TV and the agency's Facebook page 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.) the event from three satellites.
In order to view Mercury's movement across the face of the sun, a telescope or pair of binoculars will be necessary. The appropriate eye gear should be fitted with white-light solar filters to be able to gaze directly at the sun, or else permanent damage to the eyes may occur. People are advised not to look with the naked eye or through a cellphone camera. The solar filter fitted to such viewing instruments will protect the eyes from sun's harmful rays. Those without filtered instruments for viewing are encouraged to watch safely via a livestream of the event.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Live telescope viewing was offered by Slooh from observatories worldwide while a live webcast with commentary from experts will be televised on Sky and Telescope, starting 6 a.m.
The transit will end at 2:42 p.m. EDT, sunset in parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa.
With the present technology now being capable of allowing a better view of such transits, scientists are taking advantage of this occurrence. This is one of those big moments they, as well as astronomers, dream of.
The program manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Louis Mayo, said "Astronomers get excited when any two things come close to each other in the heavens. This is a big deal for us."
Observations of transits in the past have assisted scientists and astronomers alike to measure Mercury's apparent size. Those have also been useful in calculating the distance between the Earth and the sun. With more sophisticated instruments, much more can be revealed. Opportunities as these transits also allow the testing of spacecraft and instruments.
Today's transit will be studied by a joint team of scientists from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Others also monitoring the event are the space agencies of Japan, Europe, United Kingdom, as well as the United States in a collaboration led by the Japanese agency for exploration.
SOHO hopes to measure the sun's rotation axis as well as study the sun's deep solar core and the sun's effects on the solar system. SDO shall use the transit to configure the alignment of instruments trained on the small planet. As for instrument calibration, there will be a chance to study the effects on observations of stray light in the instruments.
Mercury's travel between the Earth and the sun will take seven and a half hours (at 30 miles a second) to go fully across the sun's face.
NASA will entertain questions on Twitter by using the hashtag #AskNASA. A webcast of the transit will also be viewed via Europe's Virtual Telescope at www.virtualtelescope.eu.
Images of the transit coming from NASA's SDO may also be viewed. A schedule of the Mercury Transit livestreaming event is also available from the European Space Agency (ESA). The ESA will also be featuring a livestream of the event. A list has also been provided to give an idea of the nearest transit-watching events.
A transit timetable gives the beginning, midpoint, and ending of the transit per time zone. In the central (CDT) time zone, the transit begins at 6:12 a.m., with the midpoint at 9:57 a.m., ending at 1:42 p.m.; in the Universal time zone (GMT), the timetable is at 11:12, 13:57, and 18:42; in the Pacific (PDT) time zone it is before sunrise, with the at midpoint at 7:57 a.m., ending at 11:42 a.m.
The next Mercury transit will be in 2032.
