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Mercury TOP STORY

BepiColombo Bids Farewell to Earth and the Moon

BepiColombo Bids Farewell

The joint European-Japanese Mercury spacecraft BepiColombo took a final glimpse of Earth on 11 April 2020, a day after its closest approach to the planet to perform a gravity-assist flyby.

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Mercury

BepiColombo Closing In On Earth Ahead Of Flyby

Earth As Seen By BepiColombo

An image taken by the MCAM selfie camera on board of the European-Japanese Mercury mission BepiColombo as it neared Earth ahead of its gravity-assist flyby manoeuvre in April 2020.

Mercury

Mercury's 400 C Heat May Help It make Its Own Ice

It is already hard to believe that there is ice on Mercury, where daytime temperatures reach 400 degrees Celsius, or 750 degrees Fahrenheit. Now an upcoming study says that the Vulcan heat on the planet closest to the sun likely helps make some of that ice.

Mercury

A Closer Look at Mercury's Spin and Gravity Reveals The Planet's Inner Solid Core

How do you explore the interior of a planet without ever touching down on it? Start by watching the way the planet spins, then measure how your spacecraft orbits it -- very, very carefully.

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BepiColombo Is Now Firing Its Ion Thrusters

BepiColombo, the joint ESA/JAXA spacecraft on a mission to Mercury, is now firing its thrusters for the first time in flight.

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BepiColombo Leaves Earth For Mercury

The ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury blasted off on an Ariane 5 from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou at 01:45:28 GMT on 20 October on its exciting mission to study the mysteries of the Solar System's innermost planet.

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BepiColombo Science Orbiters Stacked Together

The two science orbiters of the joint ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission are connected in their launch configuration and the European science orbiter and transport module have been given the go-ahead to be loaded with propellants.

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Video: BepiColombo's Journey to Mercury

Animation visualising BepiColombo's launch and cruise to Mercury.

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The Chemical Composition of Mercury

The chemical composition of a planetary body reflects its starting conditions modified by numerous processes during its formation and geological evolution.

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Mapping Geological Features on Mercury

Mercury, the innermost planet of our Solar System is a grey, barren world to our human eyes.

Mercury

Impact of Small Collisions On Mercury's Thin Atmosphere

Mercury, our smallest planetary neighbor, has very little to call an atmosphere, but it does have a strange weather pattern: morning micro-meteor showers.

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Mercury's Poles May Be Icier Than Previously Thought

The scorching hot surface of Mercury seems like an unlikely place to find ice, but research over the past three decades has suggested that water is frozen on the first rock from the Sun, hidden away on crater floors that are permanently shadowed from the Sun's blistering rays.

Mercury

European Space Agency Media Briefing on the Mercury BepiColombo Mission

The European Space Agency held a media briefing at ESA's technical centre in the Netherlands on July 6 to discuss the upcoming mission BepiColombo to Mercury.

Mercury

BepiColombo to Uncover Mercury's Mysteries

Mercury remains the most mysterious planet of our inner Solar System. BepiColombo, Europe's first mission to Mercury, will set off in October 2018 on a journey to the smallest and least explored rocky planet in our Solar System.

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Great Valley Found on Mercury

Scientists have discovered a new large valley on Mercury that may be the first evidence of buckling of the planet's outer silicate shell in response to global contraction.

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Mercury is Tectonically Active

It's small, it's hot, and it's shrinking. New NASA-funded research suggests that Mercury is contracting even today, joining Earth as a tectonically active planet.

Mercury

Volcanic Activity on Mercury Stopped About 3.5 Billion Years Ago

New research from North Carolina State University finds that major volcanic activity on the planet Mercury most likely ended about 3.5 billion years ago.