The BepiColombo Mercury mission faced a thruster glitch, flying closer to Mercury than planned. This mission aims to study Mercury...
September 5, 2024 03:46 PMA spacecraft carrying European and Japanese probes passed closer to Mercury than originally planned overnight after thruster problems delayed the mission to study the little-known, Sun-scorched planet.
The new path meant the spacecraft needed to fly 35 kilometres closer to the planet than initially planned -- passing just 165 kilometres above the surface -- during its latest flyby. It was the fourth of six planned flybys of Mercury on the mission's nine-billion-kilometre journey before it can finally settle into the planet's orbit.
The planet's relatively tiny mass -- it is only slightly bigger than the Moon -- means its gravitational pull is extremely weak compared to the Sun, making it tricky for satellites to stay in its orbit. After months spent investigating the problem, the thrusters will"remain operating below the minimum thrust required for an insertion into orbit around Mercury in December 2025," mission manager Santa Martinez said in a statement earlier this week.- Space 'oddities' -Mercury is by far the least studied of the four rocky, innermost planets in our solar system, which also include Venus, Earth and Mars.
Another"oddity" is that Mercury's iron core composes 60 percent of its mass -- compared to only a third for Earth.
Mercury Flyby European Space Agency JAXA Thruster Glitch Planetary Exploration
پاکستان تازہ ترین خبریں, پاکستان عنوانات
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