SCIENCE BOND

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 ...

The helium plasma - a cloud of loose, charged particles - lasted just a tenth of a second and was about one million degrees Celsius.  It was hailed as a breakthrough for the Max Planck Institute's stellarator - a chamber whose design differs from the tokamak fusion devices used elsewhere.  The Sun's energy is created by fusion.  Physicists are in a worldwide race to create stable fusion devices that could not only mimic the Sun but release abundant energy, without the volumes of toxic waste generated by nuclear fission - the splitting of the atom.The team at Greifswald, in northeastern Germany, aim in future to heat hydrogen nuclei to about 100 million C - the necessary conditions for fusion to take place like in the Sun's interior. They will use deuterium, a heavier type, or isotope, of the element. The stellarator's plasma was created on Thursday using a microwave laser, a complex combination of magnets and just 10mg of helium. The Max Planck Institute call...

The planetary conjunction - in which planets appear closer because of their positions in relation to the Sun - has been visible for days and will continue until at least the end of the week. The planets are best seen before sunrise and are expected to appear closest together on Thursday. The next time the planets will come together will be in January 2021. The planets can be seen without equipment towards the east. The best time to see them is just before sunrise because at this time they are high in the skyline but it is dark enough to see them. Binoculars and telescopes can be used to see the planets in more detail. The easiest planet to see, and the one that appears largest, is Venus, which is about 12 times brighter than Jupiter, which appears second largest. Mars is the sky's faintest planet and is some 250 times less bright than Venus. To see Mars it may be necessary to get up an hour before sunrise. He added that all parts of the UK should have at least one ...

The Moon will turn a rusty hue in the early hours of Monday and may seem larger in the sky.  The event is caused by a total lunar eclipse coinciding with another astronomical event called a supermoon.  It's the second total lunar eclipse this year, but the first since 2008 where the whole eclipse will be visible from the UK.  The entire eclipse will be visible from eastern North America, South America, West Africa and western Europe.  Skywatchers in the western half of North America, the rest of Europe and Africa, the Middle East and South Asia will see a partial one.  From the UK, observers will see the Moon pass through the Earth's shadow in the early hours of Monday morning. In North and South America the eclipse will be seen on Sunday evening. The last time a total lunar eclipse was visible in its entirety from the UK was 2008; the next time one will be visible after this is in 2019 The supermoon, where Earth's satellite is near its minimum distan...