Transit of Mercury seen by Proba-2
As the smallest planet in the Solar System crossed the face of the Sun on Monday 9 May, one of ESA’s smallest satellites was watching.
Proba-2, smaller than a cubic metre, monitors the Sun from Earth orbit with an extreme-ultraviolet telescope. It was able to spot Mercury’s transit of the Sun as a small black disc roughly four pixels in diameter.
The Mercury transit was visible from Earth starting at 11:13 GMT and ending at 18:42 GMT. The total transit time was about 7 hours and 31 minutes.
Solar transits – where a celestial body is seen to pass across the solar disc from the perspective of Earth – are relatively rare events. Mercury undergoes around 13 transits a century, and Venus two transits every 120 years.
Credit: ESA/ROB
Extraordinario, vídeo que me deja sin palabras.
So what's the whole fuss about…That was it?
C'est petit petit. Si on veut voir quelque chose, on a intérêt à choisir la qualité maximale pour visionner cette vidéo. On peut voir un petit point noir (Mercure) passer devant le soleil à partir de 0:15 secondes, à gauche et légèrement en bas de ce dernier (à 8 h).
Faszinierend!!
в NASA гораздо лучше сделали)
Wow that is amazing
Reminds me of the Mercury transit scene from 'Sunshine'. I know the movie was fictional, but it made me appreciate transits so much more.
Gee Willikers…I could see it, looks great to me. I am sure this took a lot of work to capture. Thanks!
I finally saw it, but they should edit the video with an arrow or something to show us Mercury
Thank you for this incredible video. The most amazing for me was to realized how small Mercury is compared o the Sun!
Can some please clarify why there was a sudden "burst" of what seem to be the background stars at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnAxQ-riU6Q&t=0m09s , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnAxQ-riU6Q&t=0m15s , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnAxQ-riU6Q&t=1m09s and at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnAxQ-riU6Q&t=1m15s