Mercury mission arrives after eight-year journey

After eight years of travelling and millions of miles of space travel, a spacecraft is entering the final stages of its journey to Mercury.

BepiColombo is a joint mission between two space agencies - the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

This is only the third mission to Mercury ever, least explored planet in the inner solar system.

It will try to solve some of Mercury's biggest mysteries - including how a planet can form and evolve, despite being so close to the Sun.

The BepiColombo spacecraft, named after the famous Italian scientist Giuseppe 'Bepi' Colombo, is actually two orbiters in one!

One part, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter, has been developed by the European Space Agency (ESA).

The other part, the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, was created by the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA).

It blasted off back in 2018 but getting to Mercury - the closest planet in our solar system to the Sun - has not been easy!

A big challenge for scientists is that the Sun's gravity is huge, which makes it tricky to put a spacecraft into Mercury's orbit.

As a result, BepiColombo had to complete nine fly-bys of different planets -including Earth, Mercury (six times) and Venus (twice) - in order to slow it down and help it on its way.

Earlier this month, BepiColombo started its final approach to Mercury, after its eight-year trip.

It has now arrived at the planet and will look to enter its orbit in November.

Together, both parts of the probe will study the various aspects of Mercury - from its core to what goes on on its surface, as well as its magnetic field and exosphere -which is the outermost layer of its atmosphere.

It's hoped the information will help us better understand how the planet came about and how it evolved over time.

1. Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system and the closest to the Sun.

2. It has the quickest journey around the Sun - it takes 88 Earth days to complete its orbit.

3. The planet is named after Mercury, the speediest of the Roman gods.

4. Mercury is only a little bit bigger than our moon, and its surface looks similar too, with lots of impact craters resulting from crashes with meteoroids and comets.

5. It has extreme temperatures, with its Sun-facing side getting up to 430 degrees Celsius, hot enough to melt lead, while the side facing away from the Sun cools to nearly -180C.