Friday, April 18, 2008

Mercury will shine - Don't miss it

Soon, the planet Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, will be easily visible in our skies. How and when? We'll tell you that right now.
Mercury has always been a pretty hard to see planet due to its close vicinity to the Sun. But it looks quite beautiful when seen clearly. In the upcoming days, Mercury will be clearly visible to the naked eye, right on Earth.

In a few days' time, Mercury should be visible in the low west to northwest at dusk. On April 23, Wednesday night, 30 minutes after the sun sets, you will be able to see Mercury as the brightest object in the sky, at a magnitude of –1.6.
As long as there's no big gas cloud or some crazy fog in your area or anything blocking your view, Mercury will not be hard to see.

In the sky, Mercury will not be hard to recognize but for those of you who have never seen it before, it has a yellow to orange kind of light. The brightest time will be on April 23, but it'll also be pretty low in the sky. If you miss it the first time, don't worry. You have until May 14th to see it, but after that, it'll be fading really fast.
As time passes by, Mercury's light will become lower, but it will also climb higher in height in our sky.

If you've never seen Mercury before, you should really look at it this time. It's quite a nice view and doesn't happen often.

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