A Rare Chance to Scope out Mercury

Transit of Mercury can be seen from light gray areas of the globe

The planet Mercury will be visible on Wednesday in the Americas and Thursday in Australia and Asia from the light gray shaded areas of the map above with the right kind of telescope as it inches across the surface of the sun.

The event will not be visible in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and India because it will be nighttime.

Mercury is such a tiny little thing and the sun so dangerous to the eyes, that you must use a properly outfitted telescope or online telescope cameras. Click here and here for two such options.

Beginning at 19;12 GMT (1:12 p.m. US EDT) on Wednesday, Mercury will transit the face of the sun from the bottom third left to right. The trip will take five hours.

The transits occur about 13 times a century. The last one was in 2003 and the next in 2016.