January 9th 2025.
Mercury, the pesky little planet that always seems to be in retrograde and causing chaos in our lives, has recently stunned us with a new photo. Thanks to a spacecraft operated by the European Space Agency and Japan, we were able to get an up-close look at Mercury's barren and pockmarked surface during its final fly-by yesterday. This is only the third time in the history of space exploration that a spacecraft has visited this innermost planet.
The spacecraft, known as BepiColombo, captured detailed black-and-white photographs using its three monitoring cameras as it drifted just 295km above the planet's surface. Caroline Harper, the head of space science at the UK Space Agency, was amazed by the incredible clarity of the images, especially considering the extreme temperatures that the cameras had to withstand. During the day, Mercury can reach a scorching 430°C, hot enough to melt metal, but at night, it can drop to a bone-chilling -180°C, much colder than even the coldest regions on Earth.
One of the most striking features in the photos is a row of craters near Mercury's north pole. These craters are among the coldest parts of our solar system and were captured by BepiColombo during its sixth and final flyby. But how did Mercury's surface become so wrinkled and cratered? Well, those ancient volcanoes that we learned about in science class may have played a role. In fact, we can even see evidence of possible current volcanic activity on Mercury's surface. The wrinkled plains, known as Borealis Plantia, formed billions of years ago when the lava from these volcanoes solidified.
Mercury's Borealis Plantia is comparable in size to the mass extinction-level volcanic events that have occurred on Earth, such as the one that ended the Permian period 252 million years ago. While this region may have been a hotbed of volcanic activity in the past, it is now much quieter and colder. In fact, there are craters within this region, such as Prokofiev, Kandinsky, Tolkien, and Gordimer, that never see the sun and are among the coolest places in our solar system. Scientists believe that these craters may even contain water ice, a discovery that BepiColombo will investigate further.
The images and data collected by BepiColombo will not only help us better understand Mercury's formation, but also the formation of other planets, both within our solar system and beyond. By studying its composition, geology, and magnetic field, scientists hope to unravel the mystery of how Mercury became so cracked, crinkled, and jumbled. However, studying this planet is no easy feat. Mercury is so closely tethered to the sun that observing it, whether with the naked eye or powerful telescopes, runs the risk of staring directly at the blinding star.
So why is getting to Mercury so difficult? Well, for one, its surface is hot enough to melt lead, making it impossible to land anything on it. It's a bit like trying to run down a steep hill and slowing down near the bottom - not an easy task. BepiColombo had to conduct multiple gravity assist maneuvers, using the gravity of Mercury and other planets to slow down and steer the spacecraft, in order to successfully enter Mercury's orbit without shooting straight past it.
This mission has been in the making for decades, with the first proposal dating back to 1993. The spacecraft finally took off in 2018 and has since completed its first flyby, giving astronomers their first clear view of Mercury's south pole. After spending two years cruising around the sun, BepiColombo will finally enter Mercury's orbit in 2026. It will then split into two separate probes, which will spend the following year gathering even more data about this mysterious planet.
As Harper explains, these flyby images are just a taste of the incredible data that we can expect from BepiColombo once it enters Mercury's orbit next year. From learning about our own solar system's evolution to gaining insight into how exoplanets form around other stars, the study of Mercury has the potential to teach us so much. And with the use of innovative technology, some of which was developed in the UK, we can't wait to see what else we will discover about this scorching hot and enigmatic planet.
[This article has been trending online recently and has been generated with AI. Your feed is customized.]
[Generative AI is experimental.]
