Europe will launch 'flying refrigerators' to the universe

A spacecraft with a refrigerator-like mechanism built by the European Space Agency (ESA) will fly to space to learn Mercury.

BepiColumbo, the name of a large spacecraft by ESA hired EADS Astrium technology group in the United Kingdom, with a budget of 800 million USD, will pass the nearly 77 million km distance to Mercury and the small planet. the most and the closest to the sun in the solar system.

Illustration of BepiColumbo spacecraft flying around Mercury. (Photo: ESA)

After reaching Mercury, the spacecraft will fly around this planet. Because Mercury is one of the hottest planets in the solar system, the spacecraft will have to withstand temperatures up to 426 degrees Celsius from the planet's surface. Therefore, the biggest challenge is protecting the state-of-the-art equipment in the ship, because they can only operate normally at 30 degrees Celsius.

EADS Astrium engineers must install special insulation and a large heat sink to help the ship withstand the temperature from Mercury. The media will have the opportunity to witness the BepiColumbo ship this weekend before it is brought to Italy to install the equipment. ESA will launch it in more than a year, Telegraph reported.

Scientists hope ESA's "flying refrigerator" will help them decipher many mysteries about Mercury, such as the existence of flat-bottomed holes on its surface.

"Mercury is a rocky planet in the solar system, but it has a very strange surface. It seems that some areas on the surface of Mercury are disappearing, leaving holes with a depth of 10-20m and a flat bottom. "We don't understand the cause of those holes, because the wind, the air and the erosion process don't exist on Mercury," said David Rothery, an ESA astronomer.