SOHO view of Mercury heading toward the Sun

SOHO is a satellite that observes the Sun, and produces these incredibly cool videos. The Sun itself is behind an "occulter" which blocks the glare, so you can see fainter objects around it, including planets and stars. The Sun's position is marked by the circle. Venus is the really bright object to the upper left (the lines through it are an artifact of the detector), and you can see Mars off to the right-- planets are easy to spot because they move at different speeds than the stars.

Anyway, Mercury comes screaming in from the left, heading right for the Sun-- a prelude to the transit that occurred on November 8. This video goes from Nov. 5 to Nov. 7, 2006.

Oh- just below Venus a faint dot also heads into the Sun. That's a comet!

For more about this, see my blog at http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/11/08/mercury-heading-in/

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• soho
• sun
• mercury
• astronomy
• comet
• science
• transit

[VivaLeScott1]

that star has some serious gas issues.

[sumstuff46]

Mercury, MY ASS :)

[KronicKillaz]

@clementinemcmuhammed Think about it. It makes sense, just use your brain.

[PookeoResurrected1]

@eftodd your fucked up

[eftodd]

That is not Mercury. Not even close. If you go back and look prior to 2003 that NEVER shows up.

T

[clementinemcmuhammed]

By the way, that same objet is there at the moment. It came into view on dec 6th and is moving towards the sun. No one will say what it is.

[clementinemcmuhammed]

How can that possibly be mercury?? Mercury moves around the sun, not past it in a straight line.

[IHONDURASI]

that sun is a bitch, with all those flares...

[nicekluo]

BIGGG solar flares!!! wow GREAT! post more

[venichen1]

and the star is our sun. :S

[Indianinthemachine]

That's not mercury.......wake up.

Dieter

Indian in the machine