Transit of Mercury from Saturn

A '''[[astronomical transit|transit]] of [[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]] across the [[Sun]] as seen from [[Saturn (planet)|Saturn]]''' takes place when the planet Mercury passes directly between the Sun and Saturn, obscuring a small part of the Sun's disc for an observer on Saturn. During a transit, Mercury can be seen from Saturn as a small black disc moving across the face of the Sun.

Naturally, no one has ever seen a transit of Mercury from Saturn, nor is this likely to happen in any foreseeable future. Nevertheless, the next one will take place on [[December 30]] [[2011]].

A transit could hypothetically be observed from the surface of one of Saturn's moons rather than from Saturn itself. The times and circumstances of the transits would naturally be slightly different.

The Mercury-Saturn [[synodic period]] is 88.694 days. It can be calculated using the formula 1/(1/P-1/Q), where P is the [[sidereal year|sidereal orbital period]] of Mercury (87.968435 days) and Q is the [[orbital period]] of Saturn (10746.940 days).

The [[inclination]] of Mercury's orbit with respect to Saturn's [[ecliptic]] is 6.38°, which is less than its value of 7.00° with respect to Earth's ecliptic.

Transits of Mercury from Saturn are empirically observed to occur in clusters, with two such clusters every 30 years or so.

Note: the images linked to in the following table do NOT take into account the finite speed of light. The distance of Mercury from Saturn at [[inferior conjunction]] is approximately 9.1 [[astronomical unit|AU]] or about 76 light-minutes. It can take up to 8 hours for Mercury to transit across the Sun at its widest point, thus the images correspond fairly closely to what would actually be seen by an observer on Saturn.

The images correspond to a hypothetical observer at the center of Saturn. Since Saturn has a large radius, the [[parallax]] of Mercury between Saturn's center and its north or south pole would be about 9.1", which is about 12.5 times Mercury's apparent angular diameter of 0.75", or about 4.3% of the Sun's angular diameter (about 3.5'). Therefore, some extremely close near-misses might be seen as grazing transits at Saturn's poles.

The transit that occurred on [[March 22]] [[1894]] was particularly interesting, because it began on the same day, March 21, as [[transit of Mercury from Saturn|transits of Mercury]] [[transit of Mercury from Venus|and Venus]] from Saturn. But no two of the transits were simultaneous.

Also interesting is the event of [[December 8]] [[2056]], when there is a simultaneous near-miss of Mercury and Venus.

Near misses are indicated with <s>strikeout</s>.

{| border cellspacing=0 cellpadding=5 align="center"
!colspan="2"|Transits of Mercury from Saturn
|-
| [[March 21]] [[1894]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=0&vbody=6&month=3&day=21&century=18&decade=9&year=4&hour=23&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
[http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=2&month=3&day=21&century=18&decade=9&year=4&hour=23&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=3&bfov=3&porbs=1]<br/>
|-
|colspan="2" |  
|-
| [[December 30]] [[2011]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=12&day=30&century=20&decade=1&year=1&hour=17&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| [[March 28]] [[2012]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=3&day=28&century=20&decade=1&year=2&hour=12&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| [[June 25]] [[2012]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=199&vbody=699&month=6&day=25&year=2012&hour=00&minute=00&fovmul=1&rfov=0.001&bfov=1&porbs=1]
|-
| [[September 22]] [[2012]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=199&vbody=699&month=9&day=22&year=2012&hour=00&minute=00&fovmul=1&rfov=0.02&bfov=1&porbs=1]
|-
| <s>[[December 20]] [[2012]]</s> || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=12&day=20&century=20&decade=1&year=2&hour=0&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.5&bfov=0.5&porbs=1]
|-
| [[July 22]] [[2027]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=7&day=22&century=20&decade=2&year=7&hour=19&minute=30&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| [[October 19]] [[2027]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=10&day=19&century=20&decade=2&year=7&hour=8&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| [[January 15]] [[2028]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=1&day=15&century=20&decade=2&year=8&hour=21&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| [[April 13]] [[2028]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=4&day=13&century=20&decade=2&year=8&hour=10&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| [[July 10]] [[2028]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=7&day=10&century=20&decade=2&year=8&hour=22&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| <s>[[May 18]] [[2041]]</s> || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=5&day=18&century=20&decade=4&year=1&hour=16&minute=30&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| [[August 15]] [[2041]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=8&day=15&century=20&decade=4&year=1&hour=12&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| [[November 12]] [[2041]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=11&day=12&century=20&decade=4&year=1&hour=8&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| [[February 9]] [[2042]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=2&day=9&century=20&decade=4&year=2&hour=4&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| <s>[[May 9]] [[2042]]</s> || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=5&day=9&century=20&decade=4&year=2&hour=0&minute=30&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| <s>[[December 8]] [[2056]]</s> || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=12&day=8&century=20&decade=5&year=6&hour=22&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| [[March 7]] [[2057]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=3&day=7&century=20&decade=5&year=7&hour=10&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| [[June 3]] [[2057]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=6&day=3&century=20&decade=5&year=7&hour=23&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| [[August 31]] [[2057]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=8&day=31&century=20&decade=5&year=7&hour=11&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| [[November 28]] [[2057]] || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=11&day=28&century=20&decade=5&year=7&hour=0&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|-
| <s>[[February 24]] [[2058]]</s> || [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=1&vbody=6&month=2&day=24&century=20&decade=5&year=8&hour=12&minute=0&fovmul=1&rfov=0.25&bfov=0.25&porbs=1]
|}

==See also==
* [[Astronomical transit]]
{{transit visibility table}}

==References==
* [[Albert Marth]], ''Note on the Transit of Mercury over the Sun’s Disc, which takes place for Venus on 1894 March 21, and on the Transits of Venus and Mercury, which occur for Saturn’s System on the same day'', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, '''54''' (1894), 172–174. [http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1894MNRAS..54..172M]

==External links==
* [http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/ JPL Solar System Simulator]

[[Category:Astronomical transits]]

[[de:Merkurdurchgang von Saturn]]

Transit of Mercury from Saturn

See Also

Transit of Mercury from Jupiter

Transit of Venus from Jupiter

Transit of Mars from Saturn

Transit of Venus from Saturn

Transit of Earth from Saturn