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BepiColombo Mission to Mercury: Navigating Solar Gravity and Extreme Heat

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BepiColombo Mission to Mercury: Navigating Solar Gravity and Extreme Heat

Clip title: Why it’s so hard to get to Mercury (ft. Scott Manley!) Author / channel: Dr. Becky URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JP-RtM_Eus

Summary

This video details the remarkable journey of the BepiColombo mission to Mercury, explaining why reaching the innermost planet of our solar system is a more protracted and complex endeavor than traveling to gas giants like Jupiter. The joint European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission, launched in 2018, is scheduled to finally enter Mercury’s orbit in 2026, marking an eight-year cruise phase. This seemingly counter-intuitive timeline arises primarily from the immense gravitational pull of the Sun, which acts as a “downhill” slope for a spacecraft traveling inwards, causing it to accelerate significantly. To safely enter Mercury’s orbit, the probe must shed an enormous amount of speed, a challenge that necessitates ingenious engineering solutions.

The primary method BepiColombo employs to manage its velocity is a series of “gravity assist” maneuvers. This involves multiple flybys of Earth, Venus (twice), and Mercury itself (six times), strategically using the planets’ gravitational fields to slow down and adjust the spacecraft’s trajectory. While highly fuel-efficient, this approach substantially extends the mission’s travel time. Beyond the navigational complexities, Mercury’s extreme environment presents formidable thermal challenges. Due to its close proximity to the Sun and minimal atmosphere, Mercury experiences brutal temperature swings, ranging from a scorching 430°C (806°F) on its day side to a frigid -170°C (-274°F) at night. BepiColombo is engineered with advanced thermal management systems, including specially designed radiators and multi-layered insulation, to withstand these severe conditions.

The BepiColombo mission consists of two scientific orbiters: ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), also known as Mio. These probes are designed to build upon and resolve mysteries raised by previous missions, particularly NASA’s Messenger probe. Scientific objectives include investigating the perplexing presence of water ice at Mercury’s poles within permanently shadowed craters, understanding the planet’s unusually large and dense iron-rich core, and analyzing its thin atmosphere. Researchers also hope to explain why Mercury’s magnetic field is strangely offset from its center and how it interacts with solar particles, potentially creating “magnetic tornadoes” that funnel energy to the surface. Additionally, BepiColombo will study evidence of past volcanism despite the absence of plate tectonics and Mercury’s surprising shrinkage of 14 kilometers in diameter since its formation.

Video Description & Links

Description

AD | Go to https://snhu.edu/drbecky to explore over 200 degree programs and find your path forward. | It takes longer to get to Mercury, than it does to get out to Jupiter.

The Juno mission took 5 years to cruise to Jupiter, whereas the Bepi Colombo mission has only just made it to Mercury after 8 LONG years in space.

But why has it taken so long to get there? Mercury is practically in our back garden of the solar system, but Bepi Colombo’s complicated 8 year journey has seen it make a fly-by of Earth, two fly-bys of Venus, and 6 Mercury fly-bys before it will finally start to orbit Mercury very soon, in late 2026.

So, who better to talk through the incredible feat of BepiColombo’s journey with me than YouTube’s very own rocket scientist, Scott Manley.

Papers mentioned: Einstein (1915) - https://etienneklein.fr/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Relativit%C3%A9-g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale.pdf

Previous videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlNSvrYygRc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o8kaCUm2V8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvmwqx5vjps

Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: martino.freelance@gmail.com Video produced by Marina Hui & Dr Becky Smethurst

🎧 Royal Astronomical Society Podcast that I co-host: podfollow.com/supermassive

👩🏽‍💻 I’m Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford. I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don’t know. If you’ve ever wondered about something in space and couldn’t find an answer online - you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars.

http://drbecky.uk.com

Tags

dr beccy, astronomie, physiks

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