Explore the rare Mercury transit this weekend at Liberty Science Center
Rare space event alert! On Monday, Nov. 11, Mercury will travel across the disk of our Sun in an event that’s known as a “transit.”
Starting at 7:35 am, and lasting for about 5 ½ hours until 1:04 pm EST, this spectacular event only happens about 13 times every century! Here in the United States east of the Mississippi River, we’re in luck because we can watch the entire event.
You don’t want to miss this! Here’s the catch, though: Mercury is going to be incredibly tiny. Mercury is the smallest planet, and the closest to the Sun. The Sun is about 870,000 miles across, and Mercury appears to us about 1/194 that size – which means you won’t be able to see it with just a pair of solar glasses that you can use for a solar eclipse.
In order to see Mercury, you’ll need a telescope with a solar filter or a solar projection. This Monday at Liberty Science Center, we will have a solar telescope set up for viewing. You can also visit our Science on a Sphere interactive globe to watch a livestream of the transit.
This entire weekend, you can also learn more about this major event in our all-live show “Wonders of the Night Sky.” Catch it Friday, Nov. 8 through Monday, Nov. 11 in the Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium, the biggest planetarium in the Western Hemisphere. Join a live planetarium presenter for an immersive look at why the transit occurs so rarely from our point of view!
