BERLIN—A joint European-Japanese spacecraft got its first glimpse of Mercury as it swung by the solar system’s innermost planet while on a mission to deliver two probes into orbit in 2025. The BepiColombo mission made the first of six flybys of Mercury at 7:34 p.m. EST Friday, using the planet’s gravity to slow the spacecraft down. After swooping past Mercury at altitudes of under 125 miles, the spacecraft took a low-resolution black-and-white photo with one of its monitoring cameras before zipping off again. The European Space Agency said the captured image shows the Northern Hemisphere and Mercury’s characteristic pock-marked features, among them the 103-mile-wide Lermontov crater. The joint mission by the European agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency was launched in 2018, flying once past Earth and twice past Venus on its journey to the solar system’s smallest planet. Five further flybys are needed before BepiColombo is sufficiently slowed …
-
Recent Posts
-
Archives
- May 2025
- April 2025
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- September 2013
- July 2013
- March 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- December 1
-
Meta