From Newsgroup: sci.space.news

May 03, 2016

MEDIA ADVISORY M16-050

NASA to Provide Coverage of May 9 Mercury Transit of the Sun

NASA is inviting media and viewers around the world to see a relatively rare celestial event, with coverage of the Monday, May 9 transit of the sun by the planet Mercury. Media may view the event at NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Agency scientists will be available at the Goddard viewing event for live media interviews from 6 to 11:30 a.m. EDT. To attend, media must contact Michelle Handleman at michelle.z.handleman@nasa.gov. To schedule an interview with a NASA scientist at the event, contact Claire Saravia, claire.g.desaravia@nasa.gov .

Mercury passes between Earth and the sun only about 13 times a century, its last trek taking place in 2006. Due to its diminutive size, viewing this
event safely requires a telescope or high-powered binoculars fitted with
solar filters made of specially-coated glass or Mylar.

NASA is offering several avenues for the public to view the event without specialized and costly equipment, including images on NASA.gov, a one-hour NASA Television special, and social media coverage.

Mercury will appear as a small black dot as it crosses the edge of the
sun and into view at 7:12 a.m. The planet will make a leisurely journey
across the face of the sun, reaching mid-point at approximately 10:47 a.m., and exiting the golden disk at 2:42 p.m. The entire 7.5-hour path across the sun will be visible across the Eastern United States - with magnification
and proper solar filters - while those in the West can observe the transit
in progress after sunrise.

The 2016 Mercury transit (depicted conceptually here) will occur between
about 7:12 a.m. and 2:42 p.m. EDT on May 9.
Credits: NASA

Images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) will be posted at:

http://www.nasa.gov/transit

NASA also will stream a live program on NASA TV and the agency's
Facebook page from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. -- an informal roundtable during
which experts representing planetary, heliophysics and astrophysics will discuss the science behind the Mercury transit. Viewers can ask questions via Facebook and Twitter using #AskNASA.


Roundtable participants include:

* Jim Green, planetary science director at NASA Headquarters in Washington
* Lika Guhathakurta, heliophysics program scientist at NASA Headquarters
* Nicky Fox, project scientist for the Solar Probe Plus mission at Johns
Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland
* Doug Hudgins, Exoplanet Exploration Program scientist at NASA Headquarters


To view a NASA ScienceCast video on the rare opportunity the Mercury transit poses for professional astronomers and backyard sky watchers alike, go to:

http://youtu.be/wbkrlHDKvgE

Images and animations for b-roll are available through NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio at:

http://go.nasa.gov/1X51Duz

For fast facts about Mercury, and more information on the 2016 transit of the sun, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/transit

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