* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Transit of Mercury

Blobrana · L

On Wednesday, November 8, Mercury will transit, or pass across the face of the sun beginning at 9:12 am HST.

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Credit HM Nautical Almanac Office

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-- Edited by Blobrana at 23:41, 2006-10-12

Blobrana · L

In November, the planet Mercury will make a rather feeble attempt to eclipse the Sun.

On Nov. 8, Mercury will pass through inferior conjunction, a point in its orbit where it is directly between Earth and the Sun. Normally the innermost planet is not visible during an inferior conjunction.
But this time the setup will produce a striking celestial phenomenon that can be viewed with small telescopes when Mercury's tiny silhouette slowly crosses in front of the solar disk. Astronomers refer to such an event as a "transit."
The entire transit from start to finish will be visible in its entirety only from the west coast of North America, (including central and southern Alaska), Hawaii, New Zealand and the east coast of Australia. From Australia and New Zealand the transit will occur on the morning of Nov. 9.

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