Mercury Is Sailing Across the Sun—Here’s How to Watch

On May 9, the innermost planet crosses the sun’s face, an event seen from Earth just 13 to 14 times a century.

The tiny planet Mercury is making a big splash on May 9, when it glides across the face of the sun for the first time in 10 years.

The black silhouette of the planet will take about seven and a half hours to make its trek across the solar disk, an event known as a transit. The sky show lasts from 7:12 a.m. ET until 2:42 p.m. ET.

Weather permitting, the best seats will be on the East Coast of North America as well as the bulk of South America and Western Europe, where the entire transit will happen during daylight hours. For those on the West Coast of the Americas, the transit will already be under way at sunrise, and for

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