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Updated October 3rd, 2021 at 09:42 IST

Mercury's first close by image captured by Europe-Japan's BepiColombo joint space mission

Orbiters of the BepiColombo mission will make several flybys before entering orbit on 5 December 2025. BepiColombo is only the third spacecraft to visit Mercury

Reported by: Zaini Majeed
Mercury
Image: NASA | Image:self
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The joint European-Japanese BepiColombo mission has captured the first image of Mercury as it conducted the first of six flybys at around 11:34 pm GMT, slowing down due to the planet’s gravity and capturing the first landmark glimpse.

The spacecraft managed to shoot monochrome images of the hottest planet in the solar system at altitudes of under 200 kilometres (125 miles) with one of its monitoring cameras which depicts Mercury’s Northern Hemisphere and characteristic pock-marked features, including the iconic 166-kilometer-wide (103-mile-wide) Lermontov crater in one of ESA’s cornerstone missions. The orbiters will make several flybys before entering orbit on 5 December 2025. BepiColombo is only the third spacecraft to gly by Mercury. 

NASA's MESSENGER orbited Mercury for more than four years from 3 August 2004 to 30 April 30 2015 and determined Mercury’s surface composition, revealed its geological history, discovered details about its internal magnetic field, and verified that its polar deposits are dominantly water-ice. The mission ended when MESSENGER ran out of fuel and slammed into Mercury’s surface, according to NASA. 

Mission to provide 'best understanding of Mercury to date'

BepiColombo's mission is aimed at providing the best understanding of Mercury to date, the European Space Agency informed in a release. It consists of two individual orbiters: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) to map the planet, and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) to investigate Mercury’s magnetosphere.

"BepiColombo is Europe's first mission to Mercury launched on 20 October 2018,  it is on a seven-year journey to the smallest and least explored terrestrial planet in our Solar System," ESA said in a release.

It was the first time that a mission was sent for a planetary probe so close to the Sun, which makes the spacecraft’s focus especially challenging. “The Sun’s enormous gravity presents a challenge in placing a spacecraft into a stable orbit around Mercury,” explains the European Space Agency, adding that thus far, only NASA's Mariner 10 and MESSENGER have visited Mercury and managed to capture 10 first-ever close-up images of the planet in 1974-1975. 

(European-Japanese BepiColombo spacecraft captured this view of Mercury during the first of six flybys on its voyage to orbit the planet in 2025. Image: ESA)

Once BepiColombo arrives on Mercury in late 2025, it will help reveal information on the composition and history of the planet, ESA stated. The spacecraft will endure temperatures in excess of 350 °C and gather data during its one-year nominal mission, with a possible one-year extension.

The European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched the Mercury mission in 2018 and at least five flybys are needed for BepiColombo to significantly slow down and release ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter. The agencies named the mission after Italian scientist Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo, who is accredited for the gravity assist manoeuvre for NASA's Mariner 10 that flew to Mercury in 1974.

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Published October 3rd, 2021 at 09:42 IST

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