{"id":14281,"date":"2026-09-03T13:30:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T20:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=14281"},"modified":"2026-09-07T13:37:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T20:37:35","slug":"mercury-nearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2026\/09\/03\/mercury-nearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercury Nearing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/mercury-bepicolombo-spacecraft-8840475f5f873b9bcc7245f45ffdc50c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">from AP<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A pair of spacecraft draw closer to Mercury after nearly decade-long voyage<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">BY\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/author\/marcia-dunn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MARCIA DUNN<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Why Has BepiColombo Taken 8 YEARS to Get to Mercury?\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/k6HOFuMQJBI?feature=oembed\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Two\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/science-business-planets-solar-system-mercury-b3273a7e3772e4b105f8f703823bc45f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mercury-bound spacecraft<\/a>\u00a0left their mother ship behind on Thursday and headed down the home stretch of their nearly decade-long voyage to the solar system\u2019s smallest and closest-to-the-sun planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/mercury-flyby-space-planet-79d0a7439c3fcc8841c4fb6f513e54f0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">linked European and Japanese spacecraft<\/a>\u00a0separated as planned from their cruiser, but controllers had to wait two anxious hours to receive confirmation via radio signals. The crucial operation was broadcast from the European Space Agency\u2019s control center in Germany, more than 124 million miles (200 million kilometers) away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s a brilliant moment,\u201d said lead project scientist Geraint Jones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If all goes well, the conjoined spacecraft known as BepiColombo will enter orbit\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/doomsday-at-mercury-nasa-craft-falls-from-orbit-into-planet-e6c4d26b8d5c43ee8a2a93e42471417d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">around Mercury<\/a>\u00a0in November and split from each other in December to map and study the entire planet from different altitudes. As of Thursday, the spacecraft still had 2 million miles (3.3 million kilometers) to go before reaching its destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[ <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/mercury-bepicolombo-spacecraft-8840475f5f873b9bcc7245f45ffdc50c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">click to continue reading at AP<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from AP A pair of spacecraft draw closer to Mercury after nearly decade-long voyage BY\u00a0\u00a0MARCIA DUNN CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Two\u00a0Mercury-bound spacecraft\u00a0left their mother ship behind on Thursday and headed down the home stretch of their nearly decade-long voyage to the solar system\u2019s smallest and closest-to-the-sun planet. The\u00a0linked European and Japanese spacecraft\u00a0separated as planned [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14282,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14281\/revisions\/14282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}