02/25/2020 – Ephemeris – Mercury at inferior conjunction with the Sun today

Ephemeris for Fat Tuesday, February 25th. Today the Sun will be up for 10 hours and 56 minutes, setting at 6:24, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:26. The Moon, 2 days past new, will set at 8:27 this evening.

A bit more than two weeks ago Mercury was visible in the evening twilight at its greatest elongation from the Sun, then at 8:37 this evening it will pass between the Earth and the Sun and enter the morning sky. The event is called an inferior conjunction. That’s not a dig on the quality of the event. Indeed an inferior conjunctions are more important and can produce a transit of the planet across the Sun. A rare and formerly important event when we were trying to determine the distance to the Sun. In astronomy an inferior planet is one that orbits the Sun inside the Earth’s orbit. A superior planet orbits the Sun farther than the Earth. It’s not a sign of quality. The best time to spot Mercury in the morning is in August to October, so we’ll miss Mercury this time.

The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Mercury about 7 hours before inferior conjunction February 25, 2020 near local solar noon. The last inferior conjunction of Mercury on November 11, 2019 Mercury passed across the Sun’s disk in a transit. The red ellipse is Mercury’s orbit as seen From the Earth. It’s orbit is tilted about 7 degrees from the Earth’s orbit, so transits are fairly rare events. Created using Stellarium.