Transits of Mercury are relatively rare. Monday's leisurely 7.5 hour long event was only the 2nd of 14 Mercury transits in the 21st century. If you're willing to travel, transits of the International Space Station can be more frequent though, and much quicker.
This image shows the ISS, moving from upper right to lower left, as it crossed the Sun's disk in 0.6 seconds. Mercury too is included as the small, round, almost stationary silhouette just below center. In apparent size, the International Space Station looms larger from low Earth orbit, about 450 kilometers from Philadelphia. Mercury was about 84 million kilometers away.
Watch:http://www.astrophoto.fr/mercury-transit-2016.html
Image & Info via APODhttp://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Image Credit & Copyright: Thierry Legault
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