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European-Japanese spacecraft BepiColombo On December 1, it completed the fifth of six planned approaches to Mercury, passing 48 kilometers from the surface of the planet closest to the Sun.
BepiColombo used the tool for the first time Mercury Radiometer and THermal Infrared Spectrometer (MERTIS), which made it possible to study the surface of the planet in the mid-infrared range. This will allow to determine the mineralogical composition of the surface layer of Mercury.
