Video .. Hundreds monitor the passing of Mercury in front of the sun in the sky of Qatar

Imad Murad-Doha

On a green hill in the cultural district of Katara in the Qatari capital Doha, hundreds of students and astronomers have gathered to observe the passage of Mercury (the smallest solar system) directly between Earth and the sun.

They took advantage of this unique phenomenon - which occurs only 13 times every 100 years and will not be repeated until November 2032 - to see the planet Mercury passing by the sun as a small black dot that continued its journey in front of the sun for nearly six hours.

The attendees formed groups, in each group about fifty students and interested to wrap around a large telescope reflecting the image of the crossing on a piece of white cardboard showing the sun disk in front of them, at a time when some of the specialists overseeing each group to determine the movement of Mercury in front of the sun.

Students are passionate about the telescope supervisor with dozens of questions about the astronomical phenomenon, when, how it occurs and how it affects the Earth.It is organized annually at the fifth Qatar National Olympiad for Astronomy.Monitoring this phenomenon is one of the main projects in this competition this year.

Start the jumper
With the arrival of 3:30 local time, the anticipation of all participants in the event, until the first shots showing the start of Mercury in front of the sun disk at three and 35 minutes, where Mercury appeared as a very small black point in that huge glowing disk.

Event supervisors used loudspeakers to warn attendees not to look directly at the sun with the naked eye for a long time. Instead, reflective astronomical telescopes should be used on a flat screen.

The phenomenon of Mercury passing between the Sun and Earth is due to the fact that the planet's orbit tends to orbit our planet approximately seven degrees, and therefore allows the inhabitants of the Earth to see the passage of Mercury in front of the sun disk only in two months, May and November (a difference of six months) where The orbits intersect and the Earth, Mercury and the Sun are on one straight line.

Although Mercury orbits the Sun for a full cycle every 88 days, observing this phenomenon is repeated only a few times every century, when the passage of Earth and Mercury at one of the points intersection of the orbit.

The transit phenomenon in the sky over Qatar compulsory ended at sunset on Monday at 4: 49 pm, and within 75 minutes of observation of the phenomenon, the crowd needed astronomical devices as Mercury's disk is about 150 times smaller than the disk of the sun.

Effect of the phenomenon
In the opinion of the astronomical expert in the country calendar d. Bashir Marzouk - in an interview with the island Net - that this phenomenon resembles a solar eclipse completely, but because of the proximity of Mercury, the sun can not cover the entire disk of the sun but shows a small black dot moving, explaining that this phenomenon occurs to only two planets of the solar system Mercury And Venus because their orbit falls within the orbit of our planet.

And confirms d. Marzouq said that there are no benefits or damages to the earth as a result of this phenomenon, pointing out that there are several benefits from monitoring this phenomenon.First of all is to know the accuracy of astronomical calculations and reliability in different phenomena, as well as the possibility of calculating the diameter of the sun accurately during that transit.

Mercury is the smallest and closest planet to the Sun.It has a diameter of about 4,880 km and a mass of 0.055 of the Earth's mass. Its gravity is less than half the Earth's gravity.