A joint European-Japanese mission station to one of the least explored planet in our solar system, Mercury. Mercury is the planet which is closest to the Sun. A British built spacecraft Bepicolombo blasted off from the European spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana on its long journey on a mission to Mercury at about 2:45 am UK time on Saturday, October 20 (Oct 20 GMT).
The spacecraft is actually made up of two probes: One will go into the orbit close to the planet; however the other, supplied by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, will orbit farther away, measuring Mercury’s magnetic field. Now, scientists set a mission for seven long years and need to wait until the two spacecraft that make up BepiColombo reach Mercury and separate to begin observations of the tiny, strange planet in December 2025.
The measurements were taken there could not only solve lingering mysterious about the innermost planet but however also about the establishment of our solar system and neighboring ones. The whole mission cost the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) almost $2 billion, according to press reports.
ESA Director General Jan Woerner exclaimed, “It’s a really great day,” “Let us go together to Mercury. Go, Bepi, go!” A planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Nancy Chabot remarks “What this lets you do is look at that space environment around Mercury from two different perspectives at exactly the same time,” That presents a clearer image of what’s altering during the 88 days it takes Mercury to make one revolution around the sun.
> Tilova Sumaia Khan
Spacecraft BepiColombo Propels its Journey on a Joint European-Japanese Mission to Mercury
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