First close-up pictures of Mercury from BepiColombo hint at answers to the planet's secrets

[Admin]

The BepiColombo spacecraft – a joint project by the European and Japanese space agencies – swung by its destination planet Mercury in the early hours of Oct. 2.

First close-up pictures of Mercury from BepiColombo hint at answers to the planet's secrets : Read more

 

[rod]

Mercury is very interesting. I checked exoplanet sites and found more than 2,000 reported, exoplanets that orbit close to their host stars, as close or closer than Mercury. 2226 reported at http://exoplanet.eu/. 1937 reported at https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/index.html

Semi-major axis reported range 0.0026 au out to 0.387 au. Min exoplanet mass reported 0.02 earth masses, max is 63.4 Jupiter masses. Min host star mass reported 0.01 solar masses, max 2.52 solar masses.

Our solar system is very different. We do not see planets like these orbiting our Sun where Mercury is or closer in to the Sun. Nearly 45% of the exoplanet inventory falls into this selection where a <=0.387 au.