© NASA/JPL/MESSENGER

Mercury at perihelion

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Inner Planets feed

Objects: Mercury
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The sky at

Mercury's 88-day orbit around the Sun will carry it to its closest point to the Sun – its perihelion – at a distance of 0.31 AU from the Sun.

Unlike most of the planets, which follow almost exactly circular orbits around the Sun only varying in their distance from the Sun by a few percent, Mercury has a significantly elliptical orbit.

Its distance from the Sun varies between 0.307 AU at perihelion (closest approach to the Sun), and 0.467 AU at aphelion (furthest recess from the Sun). This variation, of over 50%, means that its surface receives over twice as much energy from the Sun at perihelion as compared to aphelion.

However, this makes little difference to Mercury's telescopic appearance, since little if any detail on its surface can be resolved by ground-based telescopes. Although its changing seasons have an incredible effect upon its surface temperatures, there is little change that is visible to amateur observers.

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

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
Mercury 07h14m20s 23°10'N Gemini 5.3"
Sun 07h50m 21°00'N Gemini 31'28"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

From Ashburn, Mercury will not be observable – it will reach its highest point in the sky during daytime and will be no higher than 2° above the horizon at dawn.

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The sky on 17 Jul 2028

The sky on 17 July 2028
Sunrise
05:55
Sunset
20:33
Twilight ends
22:26
Twilight begins
04:01

25-day old moon
Waning Crescent

14%

25 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 05:10 12:35 20:00
Venus 03:08 10:12 17:16
Moon 01:20 08:55 16:38
Mars 03:47 11:14 18:42
Jupiter 10:44 17:00 23:16
Saturn 01:14 07:59 14:43
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

02 Jul 2028  –  Mercury at highest altitude in morning sky
25 Aug 2028  –  Mercury at highest altitude in evening sky
05 Sep 2028  –  Mercury at greatest elongation east
17 Oct 2028  –  Mercury at greatest elongation west

Image credit

© NASA/JPL/MESSENGER

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Ashburn

Latitude:
Longitude:
Timezone:

39.04°N
77.49°W
EDT

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