ESA’s BepiColombo spacecraft performed its closest flyby of Mercury yet during its latest encounter on September 4, 2024. The time-lapse video it recorded consists of of 128 different images captured by all three of BepiColombo’s monitoring cameras, M-CAM 1, 2 and 3.
How long did it take to snap these 128 different images? Well, the The first few were captured in the days and weeks before the flyby. Mercury can first be seen in an image taken at 23:50 CEST September 4, at a distance of approximately 119 mi (191 km), with the closest approach happening at 23:48 CEST at a distance of 103 mi (165 km). The sequence ends around 24 hours later when BepiColombo was about 150,993 mi (243,000 km) from Mercury.
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During the flyby it was possible to identify various geological features that BepiColombo will study in more detail once in orbit around the planet. Four minutes after closest approach, a large ‘peak ring basin’ called Vivaldi came into view,” said the ESA.
