Gadgetory

tonight Pepe Colombo one mission two spacecraft and a seven-year plan to learn everything we possibly can about mercury like how did our solar system form what's the deal with Mercury's magnetosphere and why is the first child in the solar system always such an overachiever I'm Claire Reilly welcome to watch this space from the CNET studios in Sydney this is your weekly guide to everything on earth you need to know about space and tonight we're looking at Pepe Colombo the mission that says well if we're gonna send a mission to mercury it might as well have a flippin sweet name Pepe Colombo is a joint European Japanese mission to investigate the sun's first and no doubt favorite child mercury think of it kind of like a spin-off of the original Columbo TV series but in this case the detective is a four thousand kilogram composite spacecraft flying towards mercury on a mission to solve the ultimate whodunit who done formed our solar system and how it done happens the mission is actually named after Italian mathematician and engineer Giuseppe Pepe Columbo who first explained Mercury's curious rotation pattern it spins on its axis three times for every two orbits around the Sun because it is such a show-off now nASA has been to Mercury previously first in 1974 and then later with the messenger spacecraft which entered the planets orbit in 2011 how did that one end again it ran out of fuel and crashed down on the planet's surface yikes but we haven't seen much of mercury since then it's kind of like our neighbor two doors down you know we know it's there but we like to avoid eye contact especially when we're taking out our recyclables on bin nine Pepe Colombo is a joint mission between the European Space Agency and the Japanese aerospace exploration agency or JAXA the ESA has been around since 1975 but JAXA is a relative baby in the space game it was formed from a group of other agencies in 2003 but it's been busy since then launching satellites and sending spacecraft like the Hayabusa to to land on asteroids which it's done Chiti three times now the ESA and JAXA no doubt looking across at NASA with its moon landing and its 60th anniversary thought the Americans can't have all the fun so they joined forces for bepi Colombo and because there's two space agencies involved and no one wanted to fight over the spaceship controllers back here on earth the Pepe Colombo mission actually includes two spacecraft ESA is mercury planetary orbiter or NPO and Jax's mercury magnetospheric orbiter or MMO double your fun on the weight of the Sun the spacecraft were launched on October 20 2018 onboard the ESA built mercury transfer module that's a mouthful but think of it kind of like an RV that the two spacecraft are gonna hitch a ride on to get to mercury JAXA brought the snacks and ESA brought the music which is why we can only assume that they're going to be listening to Kraftwerk and the final countdown is hey it's been going through a real glam rock phase recently probably why they want to go to mercury together the two spacecraft will tell us more about Mercury's geology and craters the extreme conditions it encounters on its elliptical orbit and the origin of its magnetic field and how it interacts with solar wind and then of course there's a question of whether mercury has a solid or liquid core or whether it's filled with some kind of delicious honeycomb more importantly like any child that's never moved away from its overbearing parents the mission will also study how mercury evolved being so close to its overbearing stage mum of a star the Sun because the sun's overwhelming embrace is so darn hot Pepe Colombo has state-of-the-art high-temperature coatings and insulation the MPO also has a radiator to help avoid overheating while the MMO will use a special spinning technique as it travels helping the spacecraft to stay cool while it's twirling twirling towards freedom and ion thrusters will help Pepe Colombo push back against the Sun's gravity pool because mum I need some space but why do we care about mercury anyway I mean it's not like we're gonna move there like we are with Mars right come on ESA in Jackson stop trying to make mercury happen well no it turns out mercury is important because it's so done unusual it's close to the Sun but one side of the planet is frozen over why is it so dense and based on the images that messenger took of wrinkles on the planet's surface why the hell is Mercury shrinking experts say mercury could have originated further out in our solar system and that a collision with the proto-earth or proto Venus could be what robbed it of so much of its original rock so mercury is a wrinkly shrinking little planet living too close to its parent and it was robbed of its rock inheritance when its two siblings got into a fight when they were younger I mean some may say that I'm pushing this metaphor too hard but I think we've nailed it Benny Colombo has a busy few years ahead it's set to fly by Earth in 2020 before flying by venus flying by again flying by mercury six times geez get a move on Pepe and then finally orbiting mercury in 2026 and after about a year or so in orbit that's where the bat-brella will end but not before it's told us a whole bunch more about old shrinky wrinkles alright that's it for this week's episode of watch this space will be taking a break next week but we'll be back on November 16 and in the meantime if you've enjoyed this week's episode please click like on your remote and subscribe to get more space news as it happens I'm Claire i'li for CNET goodnight and Godspeed Peppa Columbo new gown I'll count down is a great song I don't know what other songs they had but it's a good song I say nuga this says nougat that's not a word I'll just change it to honeycomb Americans of pronunciation nougat which is why we can only assume they'll be listening to Kraftwerk and the Kraft birth Kraftwerk I'm listening to the craft of work