Mercury underwent 13 transits during the entire century. In photos released by NASA, Mercury appears as a small black dot as it approaches the limb of the sun prior to its transit.
Unfortunately, the event wasn’t visible from South Africa, and only lucky stargazers in South America and eastern North America got a glimpse of Mercury in transit.
Data courtesy of NASA/SDO, HMI, and AIA science teams.
But fear not, we’ve collected some of the best photos we could find. After all, NASA had telescopes trained at the Sun; not just from the ground but from space too.
What is Mercury Transit?
Mercury is the smallest and innermost planet in our solar system, and orbits our Sun every 87.97 days. That means that a year on Mercury is only 87 days.