On Monday, Mercury slipped quietly across the face of the sun. While telescopes here on Earth were turned toward the rare event, so were space telescopes.
NASA released a beautiful video of the event as witnessed by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, a telescope that keeps a constant eye on the sun.
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The telescope captured the rare event using different filters that block out specific wavelengths.
The whole transit, which took more than seven hours to complete, allowed astronomers and planetary scientists to study Mercury from afar, including its atmosphere and its motion through space.
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The next time Mercury will transit the sun will be on Nov. 11, 2019.
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