See: Little Mercury Appears As a Black Dot As It Completes Rare Transit of Sun

For the first time in 10 years, Mercury passed directly between the Earth and sun, resembling a black dot against the vast, glowing face of our star.

Many stargazers turned to the Internet as NASA provided close-to-real-time images of the 7½-hour trek, courtesy of the Solar Dynamics Observatory.

The planet Mercury is seen in silhouette, lower left, as it transits across the face of the sun Monday, May 9, 2016. (Image: Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP)

Although the solar system's small, innermost planet appeared to be trudging along, it actually was zooming past the sun at 170,000 kmph.

The cosmic show began at 4.43 PM and lasted till 7.01 PM IST on Monday.

A transit of Mercury occurs only about 13 times a century. The next transit of Mercury won't occur until 2019. Then it won't happen again until 2032.

This composite image of observations by NASA and the ESA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory shows the path of Mercury during its November 2006 transit. (Image: Solar and Heliospheric Observatory/NASA/ESA via AP)

Mercury is closest planet to the Sun and a third the size of Earth, Mercury is one of the Solar System's curiosities.

It is one of the four rocky planets of the inner Solar System but has no atmosphere and its metallic body is scarred by collisions from space rocks.

The transit of Mercury, left, in front of the Sun is seen from St. Petersburg, Russia, Monday, May 9, 2016. The photo was taken through a hydrogen-alpha (H-alpha) narrow spectrum solar telescope that permits examination of the sun's protuberances and showing the surface activity.

Daytime on Mercury is six times hotter than the hottest place on Earth, and nighttime can be more than twice as cold as the coldest place on our planet.

It rotates so slowly - three times for every two orbits - that, bizarrely, Mercury's day is twice as long as its year.

The transit of Mercury was first recorded by French astronomer Pierre Gassendi. He observed it through a telescope in 1631, two decades after the instrument was invented.

German astronomer Johannes Kepler had correctly predicted that transit, but died in 1630 before he could witness the event.

Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo back Apple in its fight over encryption with FBI

The nation's leading tech companies joined security experts, independent programmers and civil liberties advocates who filed court papers backing Apple in its fight with the FBI over an encrypted iPhone used by an extremist killer. Several law enforcement groups, meanwhile, filed briefs in support of federal authorities who are seeking Apple's help in hacking an encrypted iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the San Bernardino mass shooters. These "friend of the court" briefs come in advance of a March 22 hearing in which Apple is asking U.S. Magistrate Sheri Pym to reverse an order requiring Apple to create a software program that overrides iPhone security features. That program would let authorities try to unlock Farook's phone by guessing its passcode; Apple says it would make all other iPhones more vulnerable to future attacks. Relatives of five people who were killed, along with one survivor of the December 2 attack, also filed a brief saying the FBI's ...

Flexible Camera Developed That Can Be Wrapped Around Objects

A team led by an Indian-origin professor at Columbia University has created a novel sheet camera that can be wrapped around everyday objects to capture images that cannot be taken with one or more conventional cameras. "Cameras today capture the world from essentially a single point in space. While the camera industry has made remarkable progress in shrinking the camera to a tiny device with ever increasing imaging quality, we are exploring a radically different approach to imaging," said Shree K Nayar, computer science professor at Columbia University. "We believe there are numerous applications for cameras that are large in format but very thin and highly flexible," added Nayar who graduated from the Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, in 1984. Nayar's team designed and fabricated a flexible lens array that adapts its optical properties when the sheet camera is bent. This optical adaptation enables the device to produce high quality images over a wide ...

BlackBerry updates BBM with enhanced privacy, more content control

Canadian mobile manufacturing company BlackBerry on Monday launched a new BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) update that will provide users enhanced privacy and control over messages and content. The update, rolled for iOS, Android and BlackBerry smartphones, is available without any subscription fees. "The new release provides unmatched level of privacy and control to BBM users without any subscription fees. Keeping control over the messages and content that they share, BBM users can be ensured that what they share is always theirs to control," Matthew Talbot, senior vice president (BBM) at BlackBerry, said in a statement.

IntellectBeat

Search This Blog