Why There Aren’t Any Spacecraft on Mercury Yet
NASA’s Messenger mission ended in 2015 and ESA-JAXA BepiColombo won’t reach Mercury until 2025. These two spacecraft will coordinate measurements of solar wind, radiation and interplanetary dust; providing in-depth knowledge about Mercury’s magnetosphere and exosphere. Mercury’s thin exosphere Mercury lacks an atmosphere to protect it, leaving it exposed to the Sun’s constant solar wind. This…