The rare celestial event of planet Mercury making a transit across the Sun was observed on 09 May 2016 by using special equipment. The solar system's smallest planet of Mercury was visible as a small dot as it moved past the Sun. Mercury's rare "transit" - in this gallery by TASS
Rare event: Mercury's journey across Sun
The solar system's smallest planet of Mercury was visible as a small dot as it moved past the Sun
Photo {{sliderIndex+1}} from 8
The transit of Mercury in front of the Sun seen from St.Petersburg, Russia, May 9, 2016. The photo was taken through a hydrogen-alpha (H-alpha) narrow spectrum solar telescope that permits examination of the sun's protuberances and showing the surface activity
© AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky School children looking through a telescope the transit of Mercury across the sun in Lucknow, India. NASA says the event occurs only about 13 times a century.
© AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh The planet Mercury as a tiny black spot (bottom) on the sun, Frankfurt/Oder, Germany
© EPA/PATRICK PLEUL Amateur astronomers watching planet Mercury passing in front of the sun, on the grounds of the Bergedorf observatory, in Hamburg, Germany
© EPA/DANIEL BOCKWOLDT Composite image of observations by NASA and the ESA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory showing the path of Mercury during its November 2006 transit
© Solar and Heliospheric Observatory/NASA/ESA via AP A boy uses a a goggle made of cardboard to watch the transit of Mercury across the sun in Lucknow, India
© AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh The planet Mercury, seen as a small black dot on the left, passes in front of the sun and is observed by an astrophysicist on a projection, at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) in Potsdam, Germany
© EPA/ RALF HIRSCHBERGER A man watching through specially secured telescope as planet Mercury passes against the Earth and the Sun in Warsaw, Poland
© AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski