Last week, the planet Mercury began retrograde motion, the optical illusion that makes it seem as though the planet is moving backward along its typical path from Earth’s vantage point. Mercury retrograde has astrological significance, and a few well-known astrologers shared their views and cautions during the event with The Wild Hunt.
While much of our recent attention was on astrological meanings of Mercury retrograde, though, the BepiColombo exploration mission recently reached the planet Mercury and started to send back to Earth new and stunning images of the planet. They are close-ups of Mercury the likes of which we have not seen in decades.
The BepiColombo mission is a joint project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The mission involves two satellites launched last year from Center Spatial Guyanais in October 2018. The mission objectives are to study the origin, structure, composition, and evolution of the planet Mercury, as well as to explore its magnetic field. The mission will also gather data to help verify Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
The mission, budgeted at the equivalent of $750 million dollars, is named after Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo, an Italian mathematician and engineer who first proposed the use of interplanetary gravity assist maneuvers. These maneuvers refer to the “slingshot” effect produced when a satellite skirts a planet or star using the planet or star’s gravity to alter its path.
The mission carries with it three component modules. “The Mercury Transfer Module,” said the ESA in a statement, “carries two science orbiters: ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, which from complementary orbits will study all aspects of mysterious Mercury from its core to surface processes, magnetic field and exosphere, to better understand the origin and evolution of a planet close to its parent star.”
BepiColmbo’s selfie with Mercury’s Northern Hemisphere [Image credit ESA]
The Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter is the satellite named Mio, which means “waterway” in Japanese. The name was selected from thousands submitted by the Japanese public. Mercury is known as the “Water Star” in wuxíng (五行), the fivefold scheme of energy that unites an understanding of the world in Japanese and Chinese mysticism and Taoism. Xíng (行) of wuxíng means refers to a “moving star” (行星, xíngxīng) in Chinese. Wuxíng itself refers to the five major planets visible to the naked eye – Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Mars, and Venus – which generate and sustain five dimensions of earthly life.
The other modules have less colorful names: The Mercury Transfer Module, which handles propulsion, and the Mercury Planetary Orbiter.
The BepiColombo spacecraft was launched toward Mercury three years ago, but the photography mission began October 1, 2021. On what would have been Bepi Colombo’s 101st birthday, the BepiColombo spacecraft arrived for its first flyby of Mercury. The BepiColombo has made three flybys already on three planets: one of Earth in April 2020 and two of Venus in October 2020 and August 2021.
Friday marked the craft’s fourth flyby, the first involving the planet Mercury. It arrived near Mercury around 7:34 PM Eastern time and passed about 124 miles from the planet’s surface. “BepiColombo is now as close to Mercury as it will get in this first of six Mercury flybys,” said the ESA on Twitter.
Images of Mercury announced on Twitter [European Space Agency]
Close-up images of Mercury streamed in a few hours later. “The region shown is part of Mercury’s northern hemisphere,” said the ESA, describing the first image that transmitted, “including Sihtu Planitia that has been flooded by lavas. A round area smoother and brighter than its surroundings characterizes the plains around the Calvino crater, which are called the Rudaki Plains. the 166 km-wide Lermontov crater is also seen, which looks bright because it contains features unique to Mercury called ‘hollows’ where volatile elements are escaping to space. It also contains a vent where volcanic explosions have occurred. BepiColombo will study these types of features once in orbit around the planet.”
The spacecraft will now perform a gravity assist maneuver and will proceed to five future flybys of the smallest planet. The next flyby of Mercury will be in June 2022, followed by June 2023, September 2024, December 2024, and January 2025. The spacecraft will finally arrive on Mercury in December 2025.
In a taste of what’s to come, BepiColombo listened to the solar winds as it sped past the planet Venus from just 340 miles above its surface. The spacecraft recorded the “audio” with its magnetometer and offered a rare listen of the event and a view of the planet.
The first images from this week’s flyby of Mercury are black and white, but eventually more data will be gathered from both the light and dark side of Mercury, as well as its surface. After the flybys, the various components of the spacecraft will deploy on the planet, and scientific observations will begin. The Mio spacecraft components, built to withstand the heat of Mercury, will study the magnetic field of the planet and see how the solar wind impacts the planet.
“When we get into orbit, we’ll then start studying the magnetic field at Mercury, and the surface of Mercury, which has huge temperatures of 450C, the temperature of a pizza oven, and yet it has water on the surface in some places,” said Mark McCaughrean, ESA’s senior advisor for science and exploration, to the BBC.
“Bepi is only the third mission ever to go to Mercury and will be much closer in for much longer than the previous missions,” McCaughrean added. “So, we’ve got a real chance of answering some of those mysteries about why the planet is the way it is.”
This retrograde may focus on the mystical nature of Mercury, but thanks to BepiColombo, we also have a rare opportunity to say, “Hello Mercury!”
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