BepiColombo Shares Stunning View of Mercury After Completing Latest Flyby [LOOK]

The first photo from the recent flyby of the far-off planet by the BepiColombo spacecraft has been released by the European and Japanese teams leading the mission to Mercury.

The black-and-white photograph shows the planet in stunning clarity, its surface covered in countless craters left behind by billions of years of asteroids and bombardments.

According to Digital Trends, the mission's Mercury Planetary Orbiter photographed it at around 570 miles (920 kilometers) above the planet's surface on June 23. European Space Agency (ESA) said the spacecraft made an even closer approach, passing just 124 miles (200 kilometers) from Mercury's surface barely five minutes before the said photo was taken.

The photograph also shows pieces of the Mercury Planetary Orbiter. For instance, the spacecraft's magnetometer boom can be seen extending from bottom left to top right, and a little portion of the medium-gain antenna is visible at the bottom right.

BepiColombo Completes Second Super Close Mercury Flyby

The most recent Mercury-bound flyby was the second of BepiColombo's six actions, according to the most recent report from CNET. A new portrait photograph was taken while the space probe was 570 miles away from the small planet.

"The image was taken at 09:49:22 UTC by the Mercury Transfer Module's Monitoring Camera 2, when the spacecraft was within about 920 km from the surface of Mercury," ESA said in a statement.

The most recent Mercury picture has a resolution of 1024 × 1024 pixels and was interpolated to 2048 x 2048 pixels. The new photo's details were greatly improved as a result.

The space probe accomplished more than just taking the brand-new photograph of Mercury. The BepiColombo spacecraft has reached its closest approach to Earth, which is around 200 kilometers away, according to the European Space Agency.

BepiColombo's Mission to Mercury

BepiColombo's ultimate objective, according to the ESA, is to keep Mercury in a stable orbit. Before it can accomplish this, though, more flybys must be made.

The space probe can reduce its speed until it can entirely orbit the solar system's smallest planet by performing the so-called gravity assist techniques.

BepiColombo is expected to orbit Mercury by 2025, according to ESA experts. Since it is focused on Mercury, the joint project of ESA and JAXA stands apart from previous, more extensive space missions.

After finishing its first flyby of Mercury in October 2021, BepiColombo took several pictures of the planet.

After the discovery of a new, solar system-adjacent, an iron-rich planet in December 2021, the enigma surrounding Mercury's creation was anticipated to be resolved.

"Even during fleeting flybys, these science 'grabs' are extremely valuable," said Johannes Benkhoff, ESA's BepiColombo project scientist, in a statement.

"We get to fly our world-class science laboratory through diverse and unexplored parts of Mercury's environment that we won't have access to once in orbit, while also getting a head start on preparations to make sure we will transition into the main science mission as quickly and smoothly as possible."

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