Transit of Mercury

A transit of Mercury across the Sun takes place when the planetMercury passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet. During a transit, Mercury appears as a tiny black dot moving across the Sun as the planet obscures a small portion of the solar disk. Because of orbital alignments, transits viewed from Earth occur in May or November. The last four such transits occurred on May 7, 2003; November 8, 2006; May 9, 2016; and November 11, 2019. The next will occur on November 13, 2032. Transits of Mercury typically last several hours, and they occur about 13 or 14 times per century, much more frequently than transits of Venus, primarily because Mercury is closer to the Sun and orbits it more rapidly.