November 11, 2019

Today the west coast woke up to the rare event of Mercury transiting across the sun! The transit commenced at 4:35 a.m. PST, well before sunrise. By the time the Sun appeared on the horizon, Mercury had already been transiting for nearly two hours. We were fortunate to enjoy clear skies, allowing us to marvel at this exceptional celestial spectacle.

A transit happens when a planet crosses in front of a star, so a Mercury transit occurs when Mercury passes directly between the Sun and earth, becoming visible against the Sun’s bright disk. From earth, we can only ever see two planets transit the Sun: Mercury and Venus since these are the only planets between us and the Sun.

That tiny dot in the picture is Mercury if at all you can spot it! It just reminded me how small and insignificant we are in the universe, that is an entire planet that we are seing.

“We are not figuratively, but literally stardust. - Neil deGrasse Tyson”

Transits of Mercury only happen about 13 times per century and won’t happen again until 2032.