Head outdoors at dawn next week and you will find a wonderful celestial treat: a beautiful string of planetary pearls arching across the heavens.

Very low in the east-northeastern sky lies Mercury. Named for the fleet-footed messenger of Roman mythology, Mercury's 88-day orbit around the sun causes the planet to appear briefly at dawn or dusk about every 1 1/2 months.

If the air is steady, aim a small telescope in its direction. You will see the planet appearing as a tiny disk & ...

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