The innermost planet of our solar system will reach its point of elongation – when it appears to be the farthest from the sun – tonight.
The elongation will start just around midnight GMT, or 7pm ET in the US on Thanksgiving today (November 23).
Mercury’s position will illuminate the planet, making it shine brighter than usual, at a magnitude of -0.4.
How to watch Mercury in the night sky tonight?
To find the planet, which is just slightly bigger than Earth’s moon, you will need to train your eyes on the western horizon around sunset.
Throughout most of November, Mercury gets lost in the sunset’s glare, but tonight it will finally breakthrough.
According to EarthSky, the planet usually favours the Southern Hemisphere at this time of the year, but as long as you keep your eyes peeled low in the sky you will be fine.
In November Mercury remains visible to the naked eye for up to an hour after sunset. Stargazers close to the equator will see the planet for up to an hour-and-a-half.
Viewers can also expect a little bonus in the form of Saturn, which is one of the brightest planets in the night sky this month.
By November 28, the ringed giant will sit in the upper right from Mercury. From mid-northern latitudes in the US and Europe, Saturn sets about an hour after nightfall.
Be sure to grab a pair of good binoculars or a telescope if you want to get a proper look at both planets.
What is Mercury?
The sun-scorched rocky planet is the smallest to orbit the sun, ever since Pluto was downgraded to a planetoid.
Mercury has a surface similar to our moon and is marginally bigger and denser. It is also 18 times smaller than Earth.
The planet’s uneven orbit takes it as close as 47 million km (29 million miles) to the sun, and as far as 70 million km (43 million miles) away.
According to American space agency Nasa, at its closest point to the sun, the star appear three times the size on Mercury as it does from Earth.
Mercury is an incredibly harsh planet with surface temperatures up to 430 degrees Celsius, no atmosphere and chilling night time temperatures which can drop to -180 degrees Celsius.
Nasa says: “Instead of an atmosphere, Mercury possesses a thin exosphere made up of atoms blasted off the surface by the solar wind and striking micrometeoroids.
“Because of solar radiation pressure, the atoms quickly escape into space and form a tail of neutral particles.
“Though Mercury’s magnetic field at the surface has just one percent the strength of Earth’s, it interacts with the magnetic field of the solar wind to episodically create intense magnetic tornadoes that funnel the fast, hot solar wind plasma down to the surface.”
The planet orbits the sun every 88 days at a breakneck speed of 50 km per second (31 miles per second). One day on mercury is equal to 175.97 Earth days.