As planets go, Mercury is a world of extremes – and one which doesn’t all the time make quite a lot of sense. Its iron core is absurdly and inexplicably enormous. Regardless of its searing temperature, it has ice trapped at its poles. It’s also pummelled each day by wild photo voltaic storms – the likes of which Earth solely experiences as soon as a century.
Suzie Imber hopes she can assist us get to know the planet a little bit higher via her work as a co-investigator with Europe and Japan’s BepiColombo mission, which final week made its last and closest flyby of Mercury, serving to it to decelerate earlier than it enters orbit in 2026. Imber, based mostly on the College of Leicester, UK, is an professional on house climate and says her research of Mercury may assist us put together for the worst photo voltaic storms right here on Earth. She was additionally, in 2017, the winner of the BBC’s Astronauts: Do you have got what it takes?, a gauntlet that pitted contestants in opposition to the rigours of house journey.
Imber informed New Scientist why she is so enthusiastic about sending a mission to Mercury, what we hope to study this intriguing planet and whether or not she may sooner or later enterprise out to the ultimate frontier herself.
Jonathan O’Callaghan: Why are we returning to Mercury now?
Suzie Imber: There are a great deal of causes. From a high-level perspective, it’s a reasonably unexplored planet. We’ve had three flybys and one orbital mission – NASA’s MESSENGER, which orbited between 2011 and 2015 – however the extra we be taught,…
