Mercury Successfully Navigated The Sun: NASA Shows Rare Phenomenon

mercury sun NASA earth Solar Dynamics Observatory SDO

By Jonnalyn Carter , Parent Herald May 10, 10:16 pm

It was a rare view on Monday when Mercury navigated the sun's surface for the first time in 10 years. The exceptional journey, called "transit," was visible to be seen in the most places on Earth.

According to BBC News, Mercury's journey across the sun was observed in Western Europe, North-Western Africa and the most part of America. There are also some places in the planet that captured the transit's section.

However, Mercury's crossed along the sun depends on the places' sunset and sunrise times. Other countries that didn't see the incredible journey were Australasia, far eastern Asia and Antarctica.

Mercury's transportation over the Sun persisted for about seven hours, from 11:12 a.m. to 6:42 p.m. GMT. It was Mercury's first successful transit since 2006 and won't happen again until 2019.

Hence, a lot of people all over the world waited for the extraordinary celestial spectacle. There are also some fortunate ones who managed to take a snap of the Mercury crossing the sun, Space reported.

In some of the striking shots, Mercury appeared to be a little dot touching the massive yellow sun. However, similar to the solar eclipses, Mercury's voyage over the sun -- and Venus as it closer to the sun than earth -- should be observed delicately with a special telescope with a particular filter or different projection system.

This is because viewing such scene directly to the sun can result to acute and permanent eye injury. Meanwhile, in case the viewers missed NASA's live stream of Mercury's navigation over the sun, there is a saved video showing the rare phenomenon, as per Engadget.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) recorded Mercury's transit across the sun and it was even uploaded on YouTube in time-lapse. SDO is NASA's rocket ship that has been introduced in 2010 to do the research on the sun's magnetic ground.

Have you watched Mercury's transit over the sun? Share us your thoughts. Write your comments below!