Europe and Japan cooperate to study Mercury

The European Aerospace (ESA) has signed a contract to manufacture BepiColombo, the first co-operative space device between Europe and Japan to launch Mercury research.

BepiColombo is designed and built in cooperation with JAXA Japanese Aerospace. Manufacturing will be undertaken by Astrium. The ship will be launched in 2013 with the Russian Souz-Fregat space rocket.

It should be recalled that from January 9 to 14, 2008, the US spacecraft Messenger approached Mercury at a record distance and captured 12,000 images of this solar system's smallest planet, in there are many pictures of the never-observed half of Mercury.

The most recent photographs and studies of Mercury were made by the Mariner-10 spacecraft more than 30 years ago. In the series of new photos, there are many photos showing that there are many holes on this planet, which are collisions of meteorites and volcanoes.

It is expected that Bepiolombo will conduct more thorough research on the planet. It consists of 2 modules that fly together but will split when entering the orbit of Mercury in 2019. The European module will study the surface and stratum of Mercury, while the Japanese module will study the magnetic field of it.

The name of the BepiColombo vessel was named in honor of Italian scientist Bepi Colombo (1920-1984), who was involved in designing the Mariner-10.

Mercury is the planet closest to the sun that is blurred by sunlight, so it is difficult to observe.It has a diameter at the equator of 4,879.4 km, which is equal to 0.383 times the diameter of the earth, an area of ​​75 x 106 km ² , ie 0.147 times of the earth's extraction;The volume is 330 x 109 kg, equal to 0.056 times the mass of the earth.

Turning around a shaft took more than 58.6 days.Because of the slow rotation speed of such axis, there is a very large temperature difference between the day and night side of Mercury: 425 ^o C compared to -180 ^o C.