On 9 May the astronomers of Europe, and other regions, having screwed their sun filters onto their telescopes, will settle down to observe a transit of Mercury. For any not familiar with astronomical jargon that is when the planet Mercury crosses the face of the sun.

Astronomy Picture of the Day: A Mercury Transit Sequence: Image Credit & Copyright Dominique Dierick

Neither as rare nor as spectacular as the similar transits of Venus, it will still be regarded as a major event in the astronomical calendar. Transits of Venus occur in pairs separated by eight years approximately once every one hundred and twenty years. The last pair was in 2004 and 2012. The cycle of occurrences of transits of Mercury is much more complex but there will be a total of fourteen in the twenty-first century with next Monday’s being the third. Because Mercury is much smaller than Venus…