Second Superclose Mercury Flyby Completed by BepiColombo! Four More To Go Until It Orbits the Smallest Planet

The second superclose flyby of BepiColombo, a space probe owned by ESA (European Space Agency) and (JAXA Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).

But, the spacecraft still needs to complete four more flybys before it can achieve its main goal. BepiColombo is a joint mission of JAXA and ESA that aims to orbit Mercury.

ESA announced that this spacecraft was able to complete its second essential Mercury-bound flyby on Thursday, June 23. When BepiColombo was passing by the smallest planet in the solar system, it was able to capture some new exciting images.

Second Superclose Mercury Flyby Completed by BepiColombo!

According to CNET's latest report, the latest Mercury-bound flyby was the second out of six activities of BepiColombo. When the space probe reached 570 miles from the tiny planet, it captured a new portrait image.

"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," said ESA via its official website.

The latest Mercury image is a 1024 x 1024 pixel resolution, which has been interpolated to 2048 x 2048 pixels. Thanks to this, the new photo's details were deeply enhanced.

If you want to see the actual image, you can visit this link.

Capturing the new Mercury portrait photo is not the only achievement made by the space probe. The European Space Agency added that BepiColombo's made its closest approach, which is around 200 km away from the planet.

Why BepiColombo Needs To Do This?

ESA explained that the final goal of BepiColombo is to maintain a stable orbit around Mercury. However, it needs to conduct more flybys before it can achieve this.

Doing the so-called gravity assist maneuvers allows the space probe to slow its speed until it can completely orbit the solar system's smallest planet.

ESA scientists claimed that BepiColombo can achieve its Mercury-bound orbit goal around 2025. The joint mission of ESA and JAXA is quite different from other larger space missions since it focuses on Mercury.

You can visit this link to see more details about the ongoing BepiColombo mission of JAXA and ESA.

In October 2021, some Mercury images were captured by BepiColombo after completing its first flyby.

In December 2021, Mercury's formation mystery was expected to be solved after discovering a new iron-rich planet that is close to the solar system.

For more news updates about BepiColombo and other unique space missions, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

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Written by: Griffin Davis