NASA is inviting viewers around the world to see a relatively rare celestial event, with coverage of the May 9 transit of the sun by the planet Mercury.
Mercury passes between Earth and the sun only about 13 times a century, its last trek taking place in 2006. Due to its diminutive size, viewing this event safely requires a telescope or high-powered binoculars fitted with solar filters made of specially-coated glass or Mylar.
NASA is offering several avenues for the public to view the event without specialized and costly equipment, including images on NASA.gov, a one-hour NASA Television special, and social media coverage.
Mercury will appear as a small black dot as it crosses the edge of the sun and into view at 7:12 a.m. The planet will make a leisurely journey across the face of the sun, reaching mid-point at approximately 10:47 a.m., and exiting the golden disk at 2:42 p.m. The entire 7.5-hour path across the sun will be visible across the Eastern United States — with magnification and proper solar filters – while those in the West can observe the transit in progress after sunrise.
Images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory will be posted at http://www.nasa.gov/transit/
NASA also will stream a live program on NASA TV and the agency’s Facebook page from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. — an informal roundtable during which experts representing planetary, heliophysics and astrophysics will discuss the science behind the Mercury transit. Viewers can ask questions via Facebook and Twitter using #AskNASA.
Roundtable participants include:
* Jim Green, planetary science director at NASA Headquarters in Washington
* Lika Guhathakurta, heliophysics program scientist at NASA Headquarters
* Nicky Fox, project scientist for the Solar Probe Plus mission at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland
* Doug Hudgins, Exoplanet Exploration Program scientist at NASA Headquarters
To view a NASA ScienceCast video on the rare opportunity the Mercury transit poses for professional astronomers and backyard sky watchers alike, go to http://youtu.be/wbkrlHDKvgE. Images and animations for b-roll are available through NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio at http://go.nasa.gov/1X51Duz. For fast facts about Mercury, and more information on the 2016 transit of the sun, visit http://www.nasa.gov/transit.