BepiColombo spacecraft launches on mission to Mercury
BepiColombo blasted into space from the European space port at Kourou, French Guiana, at about 2.45am UK time on Saturday. It was carried on top of an Ariane 5, the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) most powerful rocket.
After a tense countdown in French, the rocket rose slowly above a ball of orange flame and thundered into the sky before disappearing into cloud.
Experts say BepiColombo could not only shed light on the mysteries of our neighbourhood’s smallest planet, but also offer new insights into how the solar system formed and even provide vital clues as to whether planets found orbiting other stars – so-called exoplanets – could be habitable.
“If we want to understand our Earth and how life can [begin] on Earth and maybe on other planets, we have to understand our solar system,” said Joe Zender, the deputy project scientist for BepiColombo.
Much progress has been made in the matter, Zender said, but there is a snag. “There is one problem really, which is Mercury. Mercury doesn’t fit.”
Among the puzzles is the planet’s surprisingly high density and that it is thought to have a core that is at least partly molten. With some exoplanets orbiting very close to stars cooler than our own, finding out more about the first rock from our sun has become a pressing matter.
The BepiColombo mission is a €1.6bn (£1.4bn) joint venture between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese space agency, Jaxa.
The mission has a hefty price tag, but is arguably something of a bargain because BepiColombo involves not one orbiter but two. Once the spacecraft has been delivered into orbit around Mercury by the ESA-built Mercury transfer module, it will split to lose a protective sunshield and release the Mercury magnetospheric orbiter, built by Jaxa, and the Mercury planetary orbiter, built by ESA.
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Source theguardian.com
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