Mission to Mercury – level 2

19-06-2018 15:00

The ESA (European Space Agency) and Japan plan to study Mercury. They made a spacecraft named BepiColombo that is on its way to Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, which is in French Guiana in South America. BepiColombo will launch from there in October 2018.

It will take seven years for the spacecraft to reach the planet’s orbit. The project scientist explained that getting to Mercury is even more difficult than getting to Pluto because of the sun and its powerful gravity.

The spacecraft will have to make planetary flybys around Earth, Venus and Mercury. It will have to use a lot of energy to brake against the sun’s gravity.

Difficult words: launch (go up to space), orbit (when something goes around a planet because of its gravity), brake (slow down, move against).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.

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