Europe and Japan's BepiColombo show close-up images of the solar system's innermost planets. It flies through the shadow of Mercury to look directly at the craters permanently hidden in the shadows.
Bepi Colombo, which consists of two interconnected spaceships. It flew past Mercury for the sixth and final time on Wednesday. It uses the planet's gravitational pull to adjust its trajectory, eventually entering orbit in 2026. Mission launched in October 2018. It is a joint venture between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), each of which has provided spacecraft to explore Mercury. During the most recent flyby The twin spacecraft flew about 180 miles (295 kilometers) above the surface of Mercury, according to ESA–
From this close up, BepiColombo captured images of Mercury's crater surface. It begins on the cold, permanently dark night side near the North Pole. before moving to the sunny northern region.
Bepi Colombo received its first close-up image of the boundary separating Mercury's day and night sides using the Tracking Camera (M-CAM 1). In the image above, the rims of Prokofiev, Kandinsky, Tolkien, and Gordimer craters are scattered about. all over the surface of Mercury This creates a permanent shadow that may contain puddles of ice.
The main goal of the mission is to determine whether Mercury stores water in its shadow. Even though Mercury is close to the Sun
The enormous Caloris Basin, Mercury's largest impact crater, stretches for more than 1,500 kilometers and is visible in the lower left of the image.
Even though Mercury is a mostly dark planet, but looks young Scars (or newly formed scars) appear brighter on the surface. Scientists aren't sure what Mercury is made of. But the material that is dug up from beneath the planet's surface gradually disappears. darkens over time
In this third picture Volcanic eruptions and large-scale collisions have been highlighted as important factors behind Mercury's brighter regions. The bright spot near the planet's upper edge in this image is the Nathair Facula, the aftermath of Mercury's largest volcanic eruption. Its center is a crater approximately 40 kilometers (25 miles) long that has been the site of at least three major eruptions,” the ESA wrote.
BepiColombo is only the third spacecraft to visit Mercury. The planet is difficult to reach due to the Sun's powerful gravitational pull. Two BepiColombo probes, ESA's Mercury Planet Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA's Mercury Magnetosphere Orbiter (MMO), launched simultaneously on a single spacecraft. and each will enter their respective orbits around Mercury in late 2026. The mission has performed its first flyby. of the world in October 2021 and has become beautiful again Close-up view of the smallest planet in the solar system.As well as valuable information about this mysterious planet.
“BepiColombo's main mission phase could begin only two years from now. But the six flybys of Mercury have given us valuable new information about the investigated asteroid. Over the next few weeks, the BepiColombo team will work hard to unravel as many of Mercury's mysteries as possible with data from this flyby, Geraint Jones, BepiColombo project scientist at ESA, said in a statement.