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| artisitc Representation Messenger probe orbiting Mercury. Credit: NASA / JHU / Carnegie Institute of Washington. | |
was launched on August 3, 2004, but before reaching their destination took a few detours for Earth and Venus. Finally, last March 18 and after a journey of 7,900 million km entered the orbit of its planet of study: Mercury . We speak, of course, the probe Messenger (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging), named in honor of Mercurio , the messenger of the gods according to Roman mythology.
Despite its relative proximity, we have visited Mercury only once. It was through the Mariner X during the years 1974 and 1975, being at that time the only images we had the closest planet to our star.
Messenger probe will begin testing its scientific instruments today, March 23, but not until April 4 when it starts to get its first scientific data that will focus on performing a detailed map of the planet's surface, also studying both magnetic field and its stingy atmosphere. To make this work, Messenger is equipped with a dual imaging system (IDM), laser altimeter (MLA) spectrometer atmosphere and surface composition (MASCS) and magnetometer (MAG), among others.
A curious fact of this planet is that the duration of your day (115 Earth days) is longer than its year (87 Earth days). Formerly it was thought that synchronous rotation is always showing the same face to our star, but then found that it was not.
But the fact that strikes me the attention of this planet is the anomalous perihelion advance, and that their movement is not explained by classical mechanics of Newton. In fact, to explain this situation was a scientist named Le Verrier in 1843 that suggested the existence of a planet from the Sun than Mercury, a planet called Vulcan . Everything in science is explained sooner or later, and was a certain Albert Einstein the explanation given to him in 1915 through General Theory of Relativity using known variables and, of course, ruling the planet Vulcano.
not take another 35 years until another Mercury re-examine mission. In 2014 is scheduled to release BepiColombo, a probe will also target the smallest of the planets in our Solar System. Scientists say that the in-depth study of Mercury will yield critical data for understanding the formation of rocky planets in our solar system, which, though more or less clear how they are created, there are still gaps, and perhaps the answers are there in Mercury.
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