RI watches as Mercury aligns with Sun, Earth

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — Professional and amateur astronomers alike gathered around telescopes to witness history Monday.

The planet Mercury, the sun and the Earth all aligned – a feat that happens only 13 times a century, according to NASA.

Mercury took about 7 hours, at the appearance of 1/58 the size of the sun, to travel across the span of the star.

• WATCH: Mercury makes relatively rare move across the sun Monday

Space blogger, Jason Major, explained that the planet wasn’t the only interesting thing in the sky, you could also see sunspots.

“The sunspots are a little bit of a fuzzy area, they appear kind of blurry. Mercury appears as a very crisp dot,” he said.

The last time the rare event happened was in 2006, and it will not happen again until November of 2019.Watch Meteorologist TJ Del Santo’s report in the video above for more.