Although the number of mercury probes is small, it brings us a lot of data. On 202 1 year 1 month1day, Bepi Colombo returned a black-and-white photo of the surface of Mercury, which is also the first close-up photo of Mercury, which is very helpful for astronomers to better explore Mercury.
Mercury is like the moon? When scientists saw the transmitted photos, their first reaction was that the surface of Mercury was very similar to the moon. But this is a real photo of the surface of mercury. Although its surface is uneven and looks like the moon, in fact, through previous data analysis, mercury is more like the earth.
It is not groundless for the "brothers" of the earth to conclude that mercury is like the earth. Mercury is a real earth-like planet. However, because it is too close to the sun, the strong solar wind blows away the atmosphere of Mercury, and because there is no atmosphere, the surface of Mercury has no protective layer, and most of the solid surface is scraped away.
After nearly ten thousand years of solar wind attack, Mercury gradually has only one iron core left, and the picture we see now is the core of Mercury. According to the data obtained by the detector, because Mercury is too close to the sun, the surface temperature of Mercury is as high as 430 degrees Celsius during the day.
Must there be no life on Mercury? The answer is unknown. Because the earth where human beings live now is not suitable for life from the beginning.
The primitive earth environment is equally harsh and extreme, just like Mercury, Venus and Mars. However, after hundreds of millions of years of evolution, the distance between the earth and the sun is moderate, which makes the earth environment constantly changing and gradually becomes a human home suitable for survival.
This shows that the environment of the earth can be changed. As long as the planet is located near the livable zone of the solar system, even if the environment on the planet is not suitable for life at first, it may become the "earth" after a certain period of time. This also shows that in the solar system, the decisive factor of whether a planet has life is its distance from the sun, that is, whether it is in a livable zone.
The mysterious veil of mercury Mercury has become what it is because its orbit is too close to the sun. The strong solar wind makes the environment on Mercury deteriorate gradually, leaving only the bare planet core on the surface of Mercury.
At present, there is little observation of Mercury in astronomy. Another reason is that the sun is located near Mercury, which greatly hinders the observation process, and it is difficult to observe Mercury clearly with astronomical telescopes.
Because sunlight is very dazzling, Mercury is often buried in strong sunlight. If you want to observe mercury as much as possible, you need to observe it about three hours before the sun rises or after sunset.
"Beppe Columbo" detector "Beppe Columbo" was jointly developed by Europe and Japan, which is a combination of two detectors. The mercury orbiter and the mercury magnetospheric orbiter developed separately are combined and sent to mercury in a unified way. This close-up photo of Mercury was also sent by this detector, which brought great help to the later study of Mercury in astronomy.
It is difficult for the probe to reach Mercury, because the unique orbit and position of Mercury will be captured by the sun's gravity if it flies directly like other probes.
Therefore, if you want the probe to arrive smoothly, you can't "cut corners", you can only find a relatively safe route-first bypass the earth once, then bypass Venus twice, and finally bypass Mercury six times, and the planet's own gravity will push the probe to Mercury to control the course.
The image sent back this time is the image data taken by the probe when it passed through Mercury for the first time. This photo also helped us to uncover the mystery of Mercury. Mercury is the smallest of the eight planets in the solar system and the closest planet to the sun, which leads to the very high surface temperature of mercury during the day. Due to the unique orbit of Mercury, the surface temperature of Mercury at night is particularly low, forming a unique "ice and fire".
According to the results of this observation, although the temperature difference between mercury and ice is very large, there may still be ice. This is because there are deep pits in the polar regions of Mercury. The bottom of the deep pits has never been irradiated by sunlight, and the temperature remains below 102K, which is much lower than other parts of Mercury.
In the latest data transmission, a radar reflection point appeared on Mercury, which attracted the attention of scientists. Through the topographic exploration of mercury, scientists speculate that there may be ice layers at the poles of mercury. Perhaps the reason for radar reflection is not the ice layer on Mercury, but according to other data transmitted by the detector, there is a great possibility of ice layer on Mercury.