Mercury in transit draws crowds to Griffith Observatory for rare event

From Earth, the planet Mercury seemingly trudged along Monday as it passed between us and the sun.

But the solar system’s small, iermost planet actually was zooming past at 106,000 mph in a rare event.

• Photos: Transit of Mercury at the Griffith Observatory

And it did not go uoticed, as crowds flocked to the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles to view the planet’s transit of the sun, an event that happens only about 13 times a century.

Despite cloudy skies, eager observers lined up Monday moing on the lawn to view the celestial event.

The next one won’t occur until 2019.

And if you miss that one, it won’t happen again until 2032.

Many stargazers tued to the Inteet as NASA provided close-to-real-time images of the 7½-hour trek, courtesy of the Solar Dynamics Observatory.

In the early moing, the cosmic show was visible from the easte U.S. and Canada, as well as Weste Europe, Weste Africa and most of South America. Those places were privy to the entire event.

The audience grew as the sun rose across North America. In Easte Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and most of Africa, sunset had the curtain coming down early. Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea missed out altogether.

— From staff and wire reports