For the first time since May 2003, Mercury will transit the Sun this Wednesday, November 8. Only about thirteen transits of Mercury take place each century. Transits of Venus are even less frequent and occur in pairs with more than a century separating each pair. Mercury and Venus are the only planets in our Solar System that transit the Sun when viewed from Earth.

The entire transit will be visible only from western North America, the eastern Pacific, New Zealand, and southeastern Australia and Antarctica. Observers throughout most of the Americas will witness the beginning of the transit before the Sun sets, whereas the end of the transit will be visible in Asia and Australia as the Sun rises.

For more information on specific events of the transit, see NASA’s Eclipse Web site. To see current press coverage of the event, click here.

Mercury will next be visited by spacecraft in January 2008, when MESSENGER will fly by the planet for the first of its four Mercury encounters.