Transit of Mercury, Meteor Shower: An eventful cosmic Monday in line

20 Feb 2019

Transit of Mercury and Meteor shower will possibly make tomorrow an eventful day for astronomers, scientists. Transit of Mercury will lead the smallest planet of the Solar System look like a black dot as it makes its way in between the Earth and the Sun. Well, it seems that Monday is going to be a great day for astronomers, scientists and enthusiasts. Monday will be the day when Mercury will make its rare transit across the sun, looking like a black dot on its surface.

According to the reports, NASA and ESA will show the transit in a live stream on their websites. NASA has promised that they will bring forth images near to real time from its Solar Dynamic Observatory. While people who wish to watch the transit themselves, need to have a special telescope with the required solar filter, such that no damage is done to your eyes. Looking directly at the Transit of Mercury might as well lead to permanent damage of your eyes.

The last time when Mercury crossed Earth and the Sun was back in the year 2006 on May 7th. The next expected date is sometime around November 11th 2019. NASA also added that event only occurs 13 times in a century making it quite a rare situation and an opportunity to learn new things about the Sun, Mercury and our Solar System. London will be able to set their eyes on the Transit of Mercury tomorrow from 12.12 AM to 7.42 PM.

On the other hand, it seems that this seems to be a good time for meteor lovers. Although Haley’s Comet is not coming near us anytime soon, but we can still enjoy a classical show of meteors falling in the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. This is possibly going to be the brightest meteor shower in 2016. Currently, we are moving through a patch of debris left behind by a comet, which will result in meteor shower once the debris enters the earth’s atmosphere.

According to the reports, people will be able to see meteor shower up until ay 28th. After that the earth will leave the debris behind and continue on its course around the solar system. In fact, the next couple of days might just be the best days to watch the meteor shower as there will not be any moonlight to interfere. We are expected to come around to be debris again in October this year and we again might expect to see a show of meteor shower then.

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