© NASA/JPL/MESSENGER

Mercury at superior solar conjunction

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Inner Planets feed

Objects: Mercury
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The sky at

Mercury will pass very close to the Sun in the sky as its orbit carries it around the far side of the solar system from the Earth.

This occurs once in every synodic cycle of the planet (116 days), and marks the end of Mercury's apparition in the morning sky and its transition to become an evening object over the next few weeks.

At closest approach, Mercury will appear at a separation of only 1°23' from the Sun, making it totally unobservable for several weeks while it is lost in the Sun's glare.

Mercury will also pass apogee – the time when it is most distant from the Earth – at around the same time, since it will lie exactly opposite to the Earth in the Solar System. It will move to a distance of 1.33 AU from the Earth, making it appear small and very distant. If it could be observed, it would measure 5.1 arcsec in diameter, whilst appearing completely illuminated.

The position of Mercury at the moment it passes solar conjunction will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
Mercury 07h06m40s 23°56'N Gemini 5.1"
Sun 07h06m 22°34'N Gemini 31'27"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 6 Jul 2016

The sky on 6 July 2016
Sunrise
05:48
Sunset
20:38
Twilight ends
22:36
Twilight begins
03:50

2-day old moon
Waxing Crescent

11%

2 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 05:43 13:11 20:39
Venus 06:27 13:49 21:11
Moon 08:10 15:15 22:13
Mars 16:38 21:28 02:18
Jupiter 11:02 17:25 23:47
Saturn 17:51 22:45 03:38
All times shown in EDT.

Warning

Never attempt to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at an object close to the Sun. Doing so may result in immediate and permanent blindness.

Source

The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.

Related news

12 Jun 2016  –  Mercury at highest altitude in morning sky
04 Aug 2016  –  Mercury at highest altitude in evening sky
16 Aug 2016  –  Mercury at greatest elongation east
28 Sep 2016  –  Mercury at greatest elongation west

Image credit

© NASA/JPL/MESSENGER

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Longitude:
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39.04°N
77.49°W
EDT

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