The European and Japanese mission BepiColombo has made its first flyby of Mercury, capturing images of the planet it will eventually be exploring in more depth. In order to get close to the planet, the spacecraft makes use of the planet’s gravity to make increasingly close approaches. It has already made one flyby of Earth…
BepiColombo’s close Venus encounter Venus has been a hot spot in the solar system this week, as two different missions have captured footage of their flybys of the planet. Solar Orbiter, a joint project between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), as well as BepiColombo, a joint project between ESA and the Japan Aerospace…
Artist impression of Solar Orbiter during its second flyby of the planet. The spacecraft will make numerous gravity assist flybys at Venus to bring it closer to the sun and to tilt its orbit in order to observe our star from different perspectives. ESA/ATG medialab Mars might be the planet in our solar system that…