Music for a Transit of Mercury | Video Worth Watching

A propos of the solar eclipse coming tomorrow, here’s a video set to music of another relatively rare solar phenomenon: a transit of Mercury. About 13 times per century Mercury passes between the earth and the sun. That small black dot you see moving across the face of the sun in this video is the planet Mercury. The most recent occurrence of a transit was a little over a year ago on May 9th, 2016, from 4:12 am – 11:42 am PDT. The orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory obtained an uninterrupted vista, recording it not only in optical light but also in bands of ultraviolet light. Featured here is a composite movie of the crossing set to music.

Credit for this video goes to: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Genna Duberstein; the images are from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO. Credit for the music: Encompass by Mark Petrie.

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