The Messenger spacecraft will crash into Mercury – The Voice of the Interior

The Messenger probe NASA crash Thursday against Mercury and thus end a long mission on this planet that began in 2004.

The clash is the output found NASA to complete the task of the ship for four years to orbit the planet closest to the sun.

Without fuel, sooner or later, the Messenger would crash into Mercury. The idea is to generate a crater (diameter 16 meters) which can then be observed and thus compare the before and after.

Only the Mariner 10 between 1974 and 1975, had visited Mercury before the Messenger .

The next human artifact that this planet will come to the Bepi-Colombo mission to prepare the European Space Agency (ESA) in conjunction with the Japanese space agency Jaxa. It was launched in 2017 and reach its destination in 2024.

Mercury has 2,440 kilometers in radius (Earth, 6371). Orbits the Sun at 58 million kilometers (our planet makes 150 million).

The Messenger of almost 500 kilos, 7,900 million kilometers traveled, which gave 15 laps to Sol. He managed to send 256 000 images of Mercury and was only 100 kilometers from its surface.

Five findings about Mercury

These are the five most important findings about Mercury made by the Messenger probe.

ice . Although daytime temperatures on the surface of Mercury exceeds 400 degrees, the planet is very cold at the poles (-180). Messenger confirmed the presence of frozen water there.

Shrinkage . For ages, Mercury was cooled and cracked during this process. The planet is now 22 kilometers less in diameter than the first time.

Volcanoes . Menssenger confirmed that Mercury has volcanoes on its surface. It is believed that were active during the first billion years after its formation. Are now off.

Hollow . Frozen water and volcanoes were expected phenomena. But Messenger detected depressions that seem geologically young, which do not yet have a scientific explanation.

Magnetic Field . Like Earth, Mercury has a magnetic field, which is absent on Venus and Mars. Unlike the Earth, the Mercury is offset from the center of the planet. The scientist did not know why.