BepiColombo

Of the four rocky planets of the inner Solar System, Mercury is the least explored. Hot and more difficult for an orbiter to reach than Saturn, the planet long eluded scientists.

With its two probes, BepiColombo will be the second mission ever to orbit Mercury and the most complex one. Packed with scientific instruments, it will try to answer many perplexing questions: Why is there ice in the polar craters of the scorched planet? Why does Mercury have a magnetic field? And what are the mysterious 'hollows' on its surface? Learning more about Mercury will shed light on the history of the entire Solar System.

In 2018, the Science Museum in London inaugurated an exciting exhibition dedicated to BepiColombo. The spotlight of the exhibition is an impressive full-sized model of BepiColombo, which gives visitors a close-up look at this remarkable feat of engineering and space exploration. This model of ESA's spacecraft will remain on display at the Science Museum in London until 2024.

You can also visit a model of BepiColombo at Cité de l'Espace in Toulouse, where it is displayed as part of an exhibition dedicated to exploration.