Mercury will sail across the sun on May 9 and you can watch it

NASA is inviting media and viewers around the world to watch the relatively rare celestial event

NASA is inviting media and viewers around the world to watch a relatively rare celestial event next week.

The space agency will be covering the May 9 transit of the sun by the planet Mercury, and is offering several forums for the public to view the event without specialised and costly equipment, including images on NASA.gov, a one-hour NASA Television special, as well as social media coverage.

Meanwhile, media may view the event at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Skywatcher alert! Mercury sails across the sun on May 9 & you can watch with the right tools https://t.co/3H3bAAC6UY pic.twitter.com/mJj9hyMSm3

— NASA (@NASA) May 5, 2016

Mercury and Venus pass between Earth and the sun, from time to time, and are visible as tiny black dots on the sun’s face. Such transits do not occur very often, because the orbits of these planets are tilted at different angles from that of the Earth’s.

According to NASA, Mercury will appear as a small black dot as it crosses the edge of the sun and into view after 7am EDT (9pm AEST, 11am UTC).



The planet will make a leisurely journey across the face of the sun, reaching mid-point at approximately 10:47am (8:47pm PKT), and exiting the golden disk at 11:42pm PKT.



Mercury passes between Earth and the sun only about 13 times a century, its last trek taking place in 2006.

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