© NASA/JPL/MESSENGER

Mercury at aphelion

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Inner Planets feed

Objects: Mercury
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Mercury's 88-day orbit around the Sun will carry it to its furthest point to the Sun – its aphelion – at a distance of 0.47 AU.

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 aphelion will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
Mercury 12h36m10s 5°28'S Virgo 6.1"
Sun 11h05m 5°47'N Leo 31'44"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

From Cambridge, 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 dusk.

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The sky on 8 Sep 2034

The sky on 8 September 2034
Sunrise
06:13
Sunset
19:06
Twilight ends
20:43
Twilight begins
04:35

25-day old moon
Waning Crescent

15%

25 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 08:28 14:10 19:52
Venus 10:01 15:08 20:15
Moon 02:02 09:18 16:30
Mars 05:39 12:16 18:54
Jupiter 20:05 02:19 08:33
Saturn 02:24 09:46 17:07
All times shown in EDT.

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

05 Sep 2034  –  Mercury at highest altitude in evening sky
16 Sep 2034  –  Mercury at greatest elongation east
27 Oct 2034  –  Mercury at highest altitude in morning sky
27 Oct 2034  –  Mercury at greatest elongation west

Image credit

© NASA/JPL/MESSENGER

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Cambridge

Latitude:
Longitude:
Timezone:

42.38°N
71.11°W
EST

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