Flying by Mercury

Full disk of Mercury with its distinctive cratered surface. The image is illuminated from the left by the Sun, with some parts of the spacecraft visible in the foreground. Credits: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM

On September 4, the European Space Agency/JAXA BepiColombo probe carried out the mission. flight Closest ever to the Sun than Mercury – or any planet. 165 km away From its surface. Thanks to A Time-lapse photography Unprecedented – you can find it here at the bottom of the news – we can now also fly over the planet’s surface with BepiColombo and clearly observe, for the first time, its South Pole, which until now has remained hidden from view.

Video – Consists of: 128 photos Captured by BepiColombo’s three surveillance cameras, M-Cams 1, 2, and 3, they show the planet moving in and out of the three cameras’ field of view, then moving away from BepiColombo’s eye. The first images were taken in the days and weeks leading up to flightThe first appearance of Mercury was in a shot taken at 11.50 p.m. Italian time on September 4, at a distance of 191 kilometers. This was followed by images taken over a period of about twenty-four hours, until the last image, on September 5, when BepiColombo was already about 243,000 kilometers from Mercury.

The main purpose of BepiColombo’s three surveillance cameras was to provide images (1024 x 1024 pixel resolution snapshots) of the probe’s various arms and antennas, which is why the mechanical parts are shown in the foreground. Taking pictures of Mercury during flight They were kind of Bonus, Terra offers a unique view of the planet’s surface from three different angles.

Craters at the south pole of Mercury. Credits: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM

BepiColombo approached Mercury from the “dark side” of the planet, with Mercury’s increasingly cratered surface illuminated by the Sun as the probe passed. During flight Many of the geological features that BepiColombo will study in more detail once it reaches orbit around the planet could be identified.

«The main objective of flight The goal was to slow BepiColombo’s speed so that the probe reached an orbital period around the Sun of eighty-eight days, very close to the orbital period of Mercury.” Frank Budnickthe BepiColombo mission manager. “In that sense, it was a great success, and we are exactly where we wanted to be now. But we also had the opportunity to take pictures and make scientific measurements from places and telescopes that we will never reach again in orbit.”

deer flight to Helps The gravitational pull on September 4 was the fourth on Mercury and the seventh of nine. flight Planets in total. During its eight-year journey to the smallest and innermost planet in the solar system, BepiColombo plans to make a trip flight One orbit around Earth, two around Venus and six around Mercury, in order to maintain the correct path to enter orbit around Mercury in 2026.

Curiosity: Antonio Vivaldi’s musical work serves as a soundtrack to the stunning images The Four Seasons In honor of the Vivaldi Basin, which was seen just four minutes after Mercury’s approach.

look at me Time-lapse photography On ESA’s YouTube channel: