BepiColumbo, the joint venture between ESA and JAXA, is currently conduction operations in space. The European Space Agency recently shared an image of Mercury taken on October 1, 2021. The image was snapped as the BepiColumbo spacecraft flew past the planet.
The image was captured using the Mercury Transfer Module’s Monitoring Camera 2. The image was taken from a distance of approximately 2418 km from the surface of Mercury. However, the spacecraft made its closest approach when it reached the proximity of 199 km from the planet. It’s unclear why there were no pictures taken then.
A closer look at Mercury
The ESA says Monitoring Camera 2 offers b/w snapshots and a resolution of 1024 x 1024. The portion of Mercury shown in the image is its northern hemisphere, including Sihtu Planitia, which has been covered by lava. The brighter part is the plains surrounding Calvino crater called the Rudaki Plains.
One of the larger craters seen in the picture is known as the Lermontov crater and measures 166 kilometers across. That crater is brighter than others on Mercury’s surface because of a unique feature of the planet called “hollows.” Hollows are areas where volatile elements escape o space, and the crater has a vent where volcanic eruptions are said to have taken place.
Those features will be observed in detail once the spacecraft reaches its orbit around the planet. The gravity assists maneuver is the first of Mercury and constitutes the fourth out of nine total flybys BepiColumbo is supposed to make.
Seven years-long mission
The mission is said to span around seven years and will include flybys of other planets as well in the solar system. BepiColumbo’s Mercury Transfer Module packs a few science orbiters, including the ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter.
One of the most debated topics of debate among astronomers is why does Mercury has a huge iron core. The existing theory hint that collisions with other bodies destroyed most of the rocky mantle around Mercury during its formation, leaving a huge, dense metal core inside covered by a relatively thin crust. However, new research might have an alternate explanation.
