Here’s how to watch today’s Mercury transit

Most of the time, Mercury hurtles unnoticed through space at more than 100,000 miles an hour, difficult to glimpse with the naked eye. But space is shining its own giant spotlight on the first planet as it transits in front of the Sun Monday.

People on Earth can track the first planet’s progress as it crosses between the Earth and the Sun in what is a 13-times-in-a-century event, on average. The last transit took place in 2006:

Here’s what you should know about today’s transit:

Don’t look directly at the sun. Even those eclipse sunglasses won’t do you much good: Mercury will be invisible in the glare of the sun and too tiny to see without some kind of magnification. Amateur astronomers should also take caution: you should only try to observe the transit through your telescopes if you have solar filters to prevent damage to your eyes.

Several websites are hosting livestreams of the transit:

Your nearby library or observatory might also have viewing events during the transit, so check there.

Visibility will differ based on where you are in the country: you’ll have the best luck if you’re on the East Coast of the United States, since the transit will start before sunrise on the West Coast. But the transit will last for several hours, from after 7 a.m. to 2:42 p.m. Eastern time.

If you miss today’s transit, you won’t be entirely out of luck. The little planet will cross in front of the Sun again in 2019.

This story was originally published May 9, 2016 at 5:03 AM with the headline "Here’s how to watch today’s Mercury transit."