This view of Mercury was captured by the joint European-Japanese BepiColombo spacecraft on Oct. 1, 2021, during the first of six flybys of its journey to orbit the planet in 2025. (Image credit: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM; CC BY–SA 3.0 IGO
Japan and Europe built spacecraft that captured the first close-up view of Mercury during a weekend flyby. It revealed a rocky planet covered in craters.
BepiColombo is the name of the two connected probes that snapped their first images of Mercury on Friday, Oct. 1. It was taken during a flyby which sent them zooming around Mercury. This was the first of six Mercury flybys by BepiColombo. It is a joint effort of Japan and Europe's space agencies to slow down enough to orbit the planet in 2025.
BepiColombo snapped its first official picture of Mercury at 7:44 pm EDT (2344 GMT). The photo was taken with the Mercury Transfer Module Monitoring Camera 2. This black-and-white navigational camera measures 1,502 miles (1,418 km) from the planet. According to the European Space Agency, (ESA), the probe was approximately 1,502 miles (2.418 km) away. BepiColombo came within 124 miles (200km) of Mercury just 10 minutes earlier.
Related: BepiColombo pictures: A Mercury journey by Europe and Japan
In BepiColombo’s photo, you can see dozens of craters on Mercury's surface. Also, you can see a boom, thruster, and other parts to the spacecraft's structures.
The region shown here is Mercury's northern Hemisphere, which includes Sihtu Planitia. It has been flooded with lavas. The Calvino crater's plains, also known as the Rudaki Plains, are characterized by a round, smoother area that is brighter than the surrounding areas," ESA officials wrote in their photo description. The Lermontov crater, measuring 166 km in width, can also be seen. It is bright due to its unique features called "hollows", where volatile elements escape to space. There is also a vent that has seen volcanic explosions.
ESA also published an annotation image that identified the major Mercury craters in BepiColombo’s image along with the raw photo. As the science team at BepiColombo processes them, more photos will be available in the coming days.
Related: Mercury's most lasting mysteries
This annotation view of Mercury's first photo by BepiColombo shows major craters as well as other features that were spotted by Mercury Transfer Module Monitoring Camera 2 on a flyby of Oct. 1, 2021. (Image credit: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM. CC BY -SA 3.0 IGO
BepiColombo's $750 million mission includes two orbiters that are designed to study Mercury in unprecedented detail. It also has 16 instruments. ESA will contribute the Mercury Planetary Orbiter which will allow us to observe the planet from the surface. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter will examine the planet's magnetic field and plasma environment.
On a seven-year journey that began in 2018, the two orbiters are now riding to their target planet aboard the Mercury Transfer Module. The launch was made in 2018. BepiColombo is currently flying to their target planet on the Mercury Transfer Module. This seven-year trip began with a launch in 2018.
The Mercury flyby of June 20, 2022 is planned. It will be followed by four flybys in June 2023 and September and December 2024 and January 2025. If all goes according to plan, BepiColombo will orbit Mercury around Dec. 5, 2025.
Tariq Malik can be reached at tmalik@space.com, or on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow us @Spacedotcom on Facebook and Instagram.
