A solar-powered airplane finished crossing the United States on Saturday, landing in New York City after flying over the Statue of Liberty during its historic bid to circle the globe, the project team said. The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4 a.m. local time after it took off about five hours beforehand at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania, the team reported on the airplane's website. Such a pleasure to land in New York! For the 14th time we celebrate sustainability," said the project's co-founder Andre Borschberg on Twitter after flying over the city and the Statue of Liberty during the 14th leg of the trip around the globe. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The solar cr...
Mercury's sojourn bet ween Earth and our star lasts from 11:12 until 18:42 GMT. It will not make another transit until 2019 and then 2032. The event is impossible - and dangerous - to view with the naked eye or binoculars, but astronomy groups worldwide are offering the chance view it through filtered telescopes. Live views from space and ground telescopes are also available online. They show Mercury as a tiny black circle, smaller but darker than many sunspots, slowly traversing the Sun's giant yellow disc.From western Europe, north-western Africa and much of the Americas, Mercury's seven-and-a-half-hour glide across the Sun will be visible in its entirety. A further swathe of the planet (see map below) will catch part of the transit, depending on local sunrise and sunset times. The only land masses to miss out completely are Australasia, far eastern Asia and Antarctica. Because Mercury is so small - just one-third as big as Earth and, from our ...
