Science & Exploration
Mercury transit with solar atmosphere backdrop
In this movie from the Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrument aboard the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft, Mercury can be seen traversing the different layers in the Sun’s atmosphere. SPICE splits light from the Sun into its constituent colours to reveal different atoms in its atmosphere at different temperatures. The neon (Ne VIII) is at a temperature of 630 000 K, the carbon (C III) is at 30 000 K, the hydrogen (Ly Beta) is at 10 000 K, and the oxygen (O VI) is at 320 000 K.
The transit occurs very quickly in this short movie, with Mercury moving from left to right through the middle of the frames.
