Kourou, French Guiana, Oct 20 (EFE).- BepiColombo, the first European space mission to Mercury, successfully took off from the European spaceport in Kourou Saturday, enroute to the smallest planet of our solar system, which is also closest to the Sun, in an attempt to decipher its many unknowns. In this photo provided by European Space Agency (ESA), The Ariane 5 rocket carrying BepiColombo lifts off from its launch pad at Kourou in French Guiana, for the mission to Mercury, Saturday, Oct. 20, 2018. BepiColombo, named after 20th century Italian mathematician and Engineer Giuseppe (Bepi) Colombo, will slingshot off the Earth's gravitational field one-and-a-half years after launch before picking up speed on its journey. The only other spacecraft to visit Mercury was NASA's Mariner 10 that flew past the planet in the mid-1970s.Mercury, which is only slightly larger than Earth's moon, has a massive iron core about which little is known. As the Inquisitr previously reported, the BepiColombo mission represents a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) — with both space agencies sending in their own probe to investigate the planet closest to the sun.
Arianespace launches the European Space Agency–Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency probe BepiColombo from Guiana Space Centre as it begins a 7-year journey to Mercury. It is the final mission of the Horizon 2000+ program.