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The two satellites of BepiColombo will separate shortly before going into orbit, then begin their separate scientific investigations. Europe's Mercury Planetary Orbiter will focus on collecting images and data on the surface of the planet, while the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter from Japan will learn more about how the Mercury magnetic field interacts with the sun.
The purpose of this mission is to determine some basic information about Mercury: how it was formed, how it changed over the course of solar system history, what the interior of Mercury looks like, and even if the planet is still active on the volcanic or geological level nowadays.
The arrival of BepiColombo will undoubtedly bring new information. One of MESSENGER's strengths has been to confirm the presence of water ice in craters permanently shaded at the poles. If BepiColombo will follow MESSENGER's investigations, it will also find data that we can not even imagine at the moment.
All of this is part of a larger quest to better understand the solar system. While engineers were leading spaceships this year in places like Mars and a small asteroid called Ryugu, one of the goals was to learn how our neighborhood had changed over the centuries. This tells us a little more about the history of the origin of the Earth.
To explore the worlds of the solar system, science requires risk and daring engineering. Even if BepiColombo only partially achieves its objectives, the knowledge acquired by the researchers during the design and launching of the probe will be applied to future missions. And that will make BepiColombo remarkable in space exploration, whatever the outcome.
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