The planet Mercury danced across the sun this morning and early afternoon in an astronomical event known as a transit.
The transit this time lasted from 7:35 AM to 1:04 PM, one of the longest transits of the planet in a while, as it traveled very much across the middle of the sun’s disc, from about an 8:30 position to a 2:30 position.
The next transit of Mercury will occur on November 13, 2032; that one’ll be more difficult to see from the US, as it begins at about 2 AM Eastern Time and reaches its climactic mid-point at 3:54 AM, several hours before sunrise.
The most recent transit before this was on May 9, 2016, a rare three-year interval. A transit of Mercury occurs, on average, about 13 times every 100 years.