The “BepiColombo” space probe has sent first images from the planet Mercury to Earth. They show a surface that is reminiscent of an old friend – the moon.
Almost three years after its launch, the European-Japanese space probe “BepiColombo” took its first images of the planet Mercury. As the European Space Agency announced on Saturday, the probe transmitted black and white images to Earth after its first flyby of Mercury, showing the northern hemisphere of the planet. With its large craters, the surface of Mercury is reminiscent of the murder.
According to the information, the space probe flew past Mercury at an altitude of 199 kilometers. Since “BepiColombo” arrived on the night side of the planet, the conditions were “not ideal” for taking pictures at close range, explained the ESA. Therefore, the next picture was taken from a distance of about a thousand kilometers.
The complicated ESA project
“BepiColombo” started on October 20, 2018 on a seven-year journey to the smallest and least explored planet in our solar system. The mission to the planet closest to the sun, named after the Italian mathematician and engineer Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo and led by ESA, is considered to be the most complicated space project in Europe to date.
The journey is particularly complicated by Mercury’s proximity to the sun. Given the sun’s enormous gravity, it takes a lot of energy to slow down a space probe so that it can swing into orbit around the innermost planet of the solar system.
Several rounds to slow down
In the case of “BepiColombo” this means: In order to adjust the speed, the probe must complete a total of nine planetary fly-bys. It has already passed close to Earth once and past Venus twice. After a total of six fly-bys of Mercury, the probe is expected to swing into orbit around its target planet in 2025.
So far, only two missions by the US space agency Nasa have reached Mercury: “Mariner 10” in the 1970s and the “Messenger” space probe, which orbited Mercury from 2011 to 2015.
The “BepiColombo” mission is to explore the peculiarities of the internal structure of Mercury and its magnetic field and, among other things, investigate the question of whether there is ice in the craters facing away from the sun.