November 11th, 2006

Staggering Photo of Planet Mercury

mercury
Hey. See that black speck in the leftmost third of the picture?


That’s mercury.

The massive golden sphere in the background is the sun!

This marvelous photo is by astronomer Phil Jones.

The composited image was taken through a telescope equiped with an H-alpha filter that narrowly transmits only the red light from hydrogen atoms. Such images emphasize the solar chromosphere, the region of the Sun’s atmosphere immediately above its photosphere or normally visible surface.


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