Today, October 2, the first photographs of the surface of the planet Mercury, taken from the closest distance from it in the entire history of the space age, were transmitted to Earth. The pictures were taken at a distance of 200 kilometers by the BepiColombo spacecraft.
This is reported by the website of the European Space Agency ESA.
It was a very short visit. The European spacecraft BepiColombo is moving too fast. He flew past the planet, but managed to take a few pictures.
Black-and-white photos are of sufficiently good quality to distinguish some famous elements on the surface of the planet. For example, large craters with which Mercury is very thickly covered.
First, the device recorded the northern hemisphere of the planet at a distance of 2420 kilometers, and then the mission took pictures at an altitude of approximately 200 kilometers from Mercury.
The space agency announced that during Saturday pictures from a height of 200 km will be widely available in sufficient quantity.
It should be noted that scientists hope that with the help of the BepiColombo device it will be possible to solve many mysteries related to Mercury.
One of them concerns a very large iron core, which makes up 60% of Mercury's mass. Science still cannot explain why there is only a thin stone layer on the planet.
"Mercury has a huge metallic core. It is much denser than it should be for its size. We simply do not understand how Mercury became the way it is. There are many mysteries, but BepiColombo is designed to solve them," says Mark McCaughrian from ESA.
BepiColombo is two spacecraft in one. One part was developed by the European Space Agency (ESA), the other by the Japanese Space Agency (YAKA).
