Europe sends first space probe to Mercury

Every two years, we visit Mars. And even Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and even Pluto can not complain about the lack of interest of the earthlings. And also towards Venus, several spaceships were already on the way. In contrast, Mercury almost looks like a child unloved. Mariner 2 watched in 1974 and 1975 three times. The NASA Messenger spacecraft circled the Mercury in March 2011 for a targeted crash on April 30, 2015. And that's it.

Where, as scientists think, there can be no life anyway, it does not seem worthwhile trying to explore such inhospitable worlds. Europe wants to reverse this trend now: tonight (20.10.19 at 03:45), the space probe "BepiColombo" should open to Mercury.

Alvaro Giménez, director of science and robotics exploration at the European Space Agency (ESA), is fascinated by Mercury. Because the planet is simply not predictable. "This may be due in part to its location, its proximity to the sun and its exposure to extreme conditions, such as surface temperatures of 450 ° C."

To explore these peculiarities, the Europeans send for the first time a probe to Bury: BepiColombo – named after Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo, an Italian researcher who observed Mercury by telescope during the last century. And he calculated the trajectories on which the space probes could approach Mercury. It's all but trivial.

Johannes Benkhoff is the scientist responsible for the BepiColombo project. He knows the specifics of flights to Mercure. Unlike sensors that come out of the solar system, a probe for Mercury must consume energy to slow down. Otherwise, she would fall in the sun. It almost looks like a paradox. BepiColombo must slow down in the face of the attraction of the sun, but also accelerate it for the flight.