Mercury Will Cross in Front of Sun on Wednesday

May 6, 2003

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The planet Mercury will pass between Earth and the sun on Wednesday in a rare astronomic event that occurs only a dozen times in a century.

Observers in Asia, Africa and Europe will have the best view, but those in North America will only see the last 20 or 30 minutes of Mercury's five-hour-long trip across the sun, known to astronomers as a transit.

The transit will already be in progress as the sun rises over the U.S. East Coast around 6 a.m. EDT.

Mercury is too small -- about 1/160th the size of the Sun's diameter -- to be seen with unaided eyes, and direct telescope viewing of the transit is not recommended, because special precautions are needed to prevent permanent eye damage.

The event can be safely seen online at http:/soho.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/2003_05_07/, NASA said.

"People will see a small, perfectly round, black dot slowly moving across the solar disk," NASA eclipse expert Fred Espenak said in a statement from Goddard Space Flight Center outside Washington.

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