Can you spot the planet?The diminutive disk of Mercury, the solar system' innermost planet,spent about five hours crossing in front of the enormous solar diskyesterday (Wednesday, May 7th) asviewed from the general vicinity of planet Earth.The Sun was above the horizon durin the entire transit for observersin Europe, Africa, Asia, or Australia, and the horizon wa certainlyno problem for the sun-staring SOHO spacecraft.Seen as a dark spot,Mercury progresses from left to right(top panel to bottom) in these four images from SOHO's extremeultraviolet camera.The panels' false-colors correspond to different wavelengths inthe extreme ultraviolet which highlight regions above the Sun'svisible surface Thisis the firstof 14 transits of Mercury whichwill occur during the 21s century,but the next similar event will be transitof Venus in June of 2004.Need help spotting Mercury?Just click on the picture.
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