Right Place, Right Time: See Mercury in the Night Sky This Week

Mercury is a very challenging planet to view, but this week, skywatchers have a good chance to see it, especially in the Southern Hemisphere —on Friday, Sept. 4, the planet travels as far east of the sun as it can go, its greatest elongation. Here, we see the planet as we might from space —for example, on the International Space Station or with the Hubble Space Telescope. The red line is Mercury's orbit, which you can see is tilted quite a bit compared to the ecliptic.