Mercury Transit : Photos of Mercury Passing the Sun

 

It may not look like much but this image shows Mercury passing the Earths star the Sun.

You can see the lifeless planet in the bottom left and is making the its third of just fourteen passes it will make this century.

Please note to try and look at this with naked eye is impossible and also very dangerous. This image was taken using a number of stacked ND filters, and even then the sun was very bright.

Mercury is just 1/150^th the size of the Earth you can only see the small planet using some serious magnification.

Unlike last year’s solar Eclipse without a strong telescope or a powerful lens it there is no chance and the glasses used to watch the eclipse will be useless.

Open University’s Prof David Rothery has described the passing as a wonderful event for showing people Mercury.

Facts About Mercury

• Mercury has been known to humanity since ancient
• A year in Mercury is 88 days, yet a Mercury day is 176 Earth days.
• Mercury orbits so quickly around the Sun that early civilizations believed it was actually two different stars
• Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system with a diameter of 4,879 km
• After the Earth, Mercury is the second densest planet.
• Mercury is named after the messenger of the Roman gods, who is also known as Hermes in Greek mythology.
• Astronomers didn’t realize that Mercury was a planet until 1543
• The planet has just 38% of the gravity on Earth.
•  Mercury has no moons or rings because of its low gravity and lack of atmosphere.