Space fans have rejoiced at new high-res photos of the nearest planet to the Sun emerging on Saturday, snapped by the BepiColombo probe studying Mercury as part of a joint mission by the European and the Japanese space agencies.
The BepiColombo spacecraft, a joint project of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), flew by Mercury overnight, its closest approach being just 199km (123 miles) above the surface of the hard-to-reach planet. It snapped a handful of photos showing the densely cratered surface of the planet, which resembles the landscape of the Moon.
“The flyby was flawless from the spacecraft point of view, and it’s incredible to finally see our target planet,” the operations manager for the mission, Elsa Montagnon, has said.
The pictures snapped by the probe also show parts of its own structure, including a thruster and a boom. The craft is effectively two separate probes – the Mercury Planetary Orbiter and Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter – that are joined together for the transfer.
The ESA also released an annotated picture of Mercury’s surface, highlighting the features photographed. The region shown is part of the planet’s northern hemisphere and includes Sihtu Planitia, which has been flooded by lavas. “A round area smoother and brighter than its surroundings characterizes the plains around the Calvino crater, which are called the Rudaki Plains,” the ESA’s description reads.
“It was very exciting to see BepiColombo’s first images of Mercury, and to work out what we were seeing,” the head of ESA’s Mercury Surface and Composition Working Group, David Rothery, of the UK’s Open University, has said. “It has made me even more enthusiastic to study the top-quality science data that we should get when we are in orbit around Mercury, because this is a planet that we really do not yet fully understand.”
The BepiColombo is scheduled to reach Mercury’s orbit in 2025, following a series of orbital maneuvers and repeated flybys. It has already twice flown by Venus, most recently in August. During a flyby, no thrusters are operated and gravity comes into play instead. The spacecraft is named after the Italian scientist Giuseppe ‘Bepi’ Colombo, who first proposed the gravity assist maneuver back in 1974 – a technique now used frequently by planetary probes.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
source: RT
Împotriva articolelor redacției noastre, persoanele nemulțumite pot formula Contestație în termen de 10 zile de la publicarea articolului, la judecătoria Orășenească nr. 1 München Bayern Deutschland, in conformitate cu Legea federală Germană. Considerăm că nu se pot formula acțiuni la instanțele din România deoarece nici o persoană care activează în trustul nostru nu poate fi extrasă de sub jurisdicția federală germană. Considerăm că redacția noastră nu răspunde în fața autorităților din România ci doar celor federale sau civile germane. deoarece legea română nu are efecte de extraneitate asupra redacției chiar dacă subiectul știrilor face obiectul unor evenimente sau persoane din România și sunt scrise în limba română. Limba română nu este izvor de extraneitate a legii.
absolvent WEB DESIGN Academia Britanică de Comunicare Iasi - absolvent COMUNICARE IN AFACERI Academia Britanica de Afaceri si Comunicare -absolvent JURNALISM EDITORIAL - London School University - 2019 inscris la echivalare diploma la Universitatea Politehnica Timisoara - absolvent studii de Drept Universitatea Europeană Drăgan, cursuri in Drept la Universitatea de Vest Timisoara, absolvent studii de proiectare, pastor coordonator in Biserica Protestanta Evanghelica,
Android Developer pe Google Play și plugin developer la Oxwall, creator de teme Wordpress și Oxwall, operator Wordpress, Drupal, Oxwall, Osclass, Moodle, tehnologii HTML și PHP
A panel of Israeli health experts has voted to recommend a fourth Covid-19 vaccine dose for citizens aged 60 and older, with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett already urging residents to get the shot ahead of formal approval. A Health Ministry body known as the pandemic treatment staff voted for the additional dose on Tuesday, recommending […]
The Moon’s atmosphere doesn’t contain enough oxygen for human life, but under the planet’s rocky top layer, there’s enough of the gas to sustain eight billion human lives for 100,000 years, according to a prominent scientist. In a piece penned this week in The Conversation, John Grant, a lecturer in soil science at Australia’s Southern […]
A former Saudi intelligence official turned regime critic claims that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is trying to kill him due to secrets in his possession, describing the ruler as a “psychopath with no empathy” on CBS. Saad Aljabri, a former Saudi minister of state and close aide of ex-crown prince and intelligence boss Mohammed […]
