Composite image of Mercury transit across the Sun, as seen by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on November 11, 2019. Credit: NASA
Starting around approximately 1200 – 1808 UTC (7:00 am – 1:38 pm ET) November 11, 2019, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory watched as Mercury moved across the Sun. The Solar Dynamics Observatory views the Sun in a variety of wavelengths of light in the extreme ultraviolet.
During a transit, planets (either Mercury or Venus) appear as dark spots that seem to crawl across the surface of the Sun. Transits are much rarer than eclipses of the Moon. A Mercury transit occurs, on average, once every seven years. As for Venus, its next solar transit will not occur for another century, on December 11, 2117.
Composite image of Mercury transit across the Sun, as seen by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on November 11, 2019. Credit: NASA
For more information on the Mercury Transit, read our Pre- Mercury Transit Coverage and learn about the history, how it relates to exoplanet discovery, and more. Additionally, this Mercury Transit Article provides more information as well as a 4K video of the 2016 Mercury Transit, so you can compare it to the video above of this year’s transit of Mercury.
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