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Two spacecraft built by Europe and Japan captured their first up close look at the planet Mercury during a weekend flyby, revealing a rocky world covered in craters.
The two linked probes, known together as BepiColombo, took their first image of Mercury on Friday evening (October 1) during a flyby that sent them zooming around the planet. The encounter marked the first of six overflights over Mercury for BepiColombo, a joint effort by space agencies from Europe and Japan, to slow down enough to orbit the planet in 2025.
BepiColombo took his first official photo of Mercury at 7:44 p.m. EDT (2344 GMT) with his Mercury Transfer Module Monitoring Camera 2, a black-and-white navigation camera, while the probe was approximately 1,502 miles (2,418 kilometers) away of the planet, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). Just 10 minutes earlier, at 7:34 p.m. EDT, BepiColombo made its closest approach to Mercury, passing within 200 km of the planet.
Related: BepiColombo in pictures: A Mercury journey through Europe and Japan
Dozens of craters are visible on the surface of Mercury in the photo by BepiColombo, just like an arrow, a thruster and other parts of the structure of the spacecraft.
“The region depicted is part of the northern hemisphere of Mercury, including Sihtu Planitia which has been inundated with lava. A round area smoother and brighter than its surroundings characterizes the plains around the Calvino crater, called the plains of Rudaki, “ESA officials wrote in a statement. description photo. “The 166 km wide Lermontov Crater is also visible, which looks brilliant because it contains features unique to Mercury called ‘hollows’ where volatile elements escape into space. It also contains a vent where volcanic explosions occur. have occurred. “
ESA also released an annotated image identifying the main craters of Mercury in the BepiColombo image next to the raw photo. More photos should be published in the coming days as they are processed by the BepiColombo scientific team.
Related: The most enduring mysteries of Mercury
The $ 750 million BepiColombo mission consists of two different orbiters designed to study Mercury in unprecedented detail with a total of 16 different instruments. ESA’s contribution is the Mercury Planetary Orbiter to study the planet from above while the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, built by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, will study the magnetic field, plasma environment and dust of the planet.
The two orbiters are heading to their target planet on the Mercury Transfer Module on a seven-year journey that began with a launch in 2018. So far, BepiColombo has successfully completed four flyovers of three different planets: one from Earth in April 2020, two from Venus (in October 2020 and August 2021) and now that of Mercury.
The next overflight of Mercury is scheduled for June 20, 2022 and will be followed by four more overflights in June 2023, September and December 2024 and January 2025. If all goes well, BepiColombo should enter orbit around Mercury on December 5. , 2025.
Email Tariq Malik at [email protected] or follow him @tariqjmalik. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.
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