This sequence of Mercury's rare
transit across the sun was shot
every ten minutes on November 8,
2006. The planet's
silhouette can be seen moving
from left (11:11 a.m. PST) to
right (1:41 p.m. PST) in front
of the sun's brilliant
photosphere. Sunspot 923,
which is just rounding the sun's
limb on the left, is many times
larger than the Earth. The
next transit occurs when Venus
crosses the sun in 2012. |