Little is known about the smallest planet in our solar system. Thanks to these new images, astronomers are slowly but surely unraveling Mercury’s mysterious history.
BepiColombo, a space probe of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), has made a second trip to the planet Mercury. In the images of the flight, the little planet shines like never before.
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Cosmic Relief
BepiColombo uses Mercury’s gravity to slow down and adjust its direction slightly. The space mission has to make 4 more of these gravitational pendulums before it lands in the correct orbit in 2025. Once there, the craft activates additional instruments that will allow it to study all aspects of mysterious Mercury: from core to surface, its origin and evolution.
So that will take a while. In the meantime, we can enjoy the otherworldly vistas that BepiColombo has collected. As the spacecraft flew from night to day, the sun rose over the crater-strewn surface. The sun’s rays cast shadows across the cosmic relief – the perfect moment for a photo. The images show some craters and volcanoes that BepiColombo will study in 3 years. For example, the Caloris Plain, a pool of lava that stretches 1,550 kilometers across Mercury’s surface. The glowing mush stands out against the dark background.
David Rothery of the Open University, who leads ESA’s Mercury Surface & Composition Working Group, said in a press release: “Mercury flyby 1 images were good, but the flyby 2 images are even better. I hope this will help us better understand the volcanic and tectonic history of this amazing planet.”
Sources: IFL Science, ESA
Image: ESA
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