In this view, north is approximately towards the top right. Closest approach of 200 km took place shortly before, at 09:44 UTC. This image was taken at 09:55:32 UTC by the Mercury Transfer Module’s Monitoring Camera 2, when the spacecraft was 2,862 km from the surface of Mercury. Emanuela Bordoni, a researcher at ESA.īepiColombo captured this view of Mercury on Jas the spacecraft flew past the planet for its second of six gravity assist maneuvers at Mercury. “We have completed our second of six Mercury flybys and will be back this time next year for our third before arriving in Mercury orbit in 2025,” said BepiColombo deputy spacecraft operations manager Dr. Images from the spacecraft’s three monitoring cameras (MCAM), along with scientific data from a number of instruments, were collected during the encounter. The closest approach during the second gravity assist maneuver took place at 09:44 UTC on June 23, 2022, about 200 km above the surface of Mercury. I want to understand the volcanic and tectonic history of this amazing planet.” “The images highlight many of the science goals that we can address when BepiColombo gets into orbit. David Rothery, a researcher at the Open University.
“Mercury flyby 1 images were good, but flyby 2 images are even better,” said Dr. It will need nine gravity assist flybys - one at Earth, two at Venus and six at Mercury - before entering orbit around Mercury in 2025.īepiColombo performed its first gravity assist of Mercury on October 1, 2021. It is the first European mission to Mercury and is the first to send two spacecraft to make complementary measurements of the planet and its dynamic environment at the same time.īepiColombo consists of two individual orbiters: ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO, or ‘Mio’). Image credit: ESA / BepiColombo / MTM.īepiColombo blasted off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on October 20, 2018. This texture is common around fresh craters on Mercury. The region surrounding Amaral is pockmarked with so-called secondary craters caused by material ejected from Amaral during its formation re-impacting onto the surface nearby. North of Heaney, past the high-gain antenna, is the 105-km-wide Amaral crater with a clearly defined rim and a central peak cluster. This is a rare example of a candidate volcano on Mercury, which will be an important target for BepiColombo’s high resolution imaging suite once in orbit. The floor of the 125-km-wide Heaney crater (next to BepiColombo’s high-gain antenna in the centre of this image) is covered in smooth volcanic plains, and a small mound is illuminated.
The eruptions that formed these plains did not commonly build volcanoes that we are familiar with on Earth. Mercury’s smooth plains were formed by volcanic eruptions of runny lavas that spread across the planet 3.7 billion years ago - such as the plains visible between BepiColombo’s high-gain antenna and towards Mercury’s limb. While clearly a heavily cratered region, this image also highlights some of Mercury’s volcanic history. This image was taken at 09:51:07 UTC by the Mercury Transfer Module’s Monitoring Camera 3, when the spacecraft was 1,406 km from the surface of Mercury. BepiColombo captured this view of Mercury on Jas the spacecraft flew past the planet for its second of six gravity assist maneuvers at Mercury.
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