Mercury transit 2016: Planet about to make rare appearance as it moves across the sun

Our solar system's smallest planet will be visible on Monday, May 9 as it passes between Earth and the sun, in a rare spectacle that only occurs a few times a century. Mercury will take about seven and a half hours to move across the sun beginning from 7:12 a.m. EST until around 2:42 p.m. EST. Mercury, which is about three times smaller than Earth, will be just 1/158 the width of the sun's disk, so its movement across the sun is only visible with high-powered lenses.