Rare planetary treat for astronomers
Afp, Paris
Astronomers in the Americas, East Asia and Australasia will get a rare daylight treat this week when Mercury passes in a direct line between the Earth and the Sun, a "transit" that will next occur on May 9, 2016. Skygazers will be able to see Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, creep across the solar disk as a tiny black dot. The whole five-hour transit, from 1912 GMT on Wednesday to 0010 GMT on Thursday, can be visible from the western coast of the United States, Canada, New Zealand, southeastern Australia, and the archipelagoes of the South Pacific. Part of the transit will be visible before sunset on Wednesday in the rest of the Americas and after sunrise on Thursday in East Asia and the rest of Australia. It will not be visible in Europe, Africa, the Middle East or in Asia west of Burma. The only other planet that makes a transit from Earth’s perspective is Venus, the second planet from the Sun. The last Venusian crossing was in June 2004.
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