Japan, Europe launch space probes to survey Mercury

An Ariane 5 rocket carrying two robotic explorers, separately developed by the Japanese and European space agencies, was launched Friday from the Kourou space center in French Guiana on a seven-year journey to Mercury.The explorers developed by the Japan Space Exploration Agency and the European Space Agency will travel 9 billion kilometers to the planet closest to the sun, and orbit around it for about a year collecting data.The joint Japan-European mission, named BepiColombo after Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo, a mathematician who played a vital role in planning the multiple fly-bys of the firs…READ FULL ARTICLE