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Paris, June 28 (IANS) BepiColombo, a joint mission of European Space Agency's (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), successfully completed the

BepiColombo, a joint mission of European Space Agencys (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), successfully completed the second of its six encounters with Mercury -- about 200 km above the planets surface.The spacecraft, which ...

Do you ever wonder what Mercury looks like up close? A joint mission by a European-Japanese space agency will definitely feed your curiosity as it has photographed the smallest planet in our solar system last year when it made its closest approach to the Swift Planet.

The first views of Mercury by the BepiColombo spacecraft were snapped as the mission made a gravity assist pass by the planet.

Joint European-Japanese BepiColombo is completing one of nine gravity assists and will finally arrive in Mercury’s orbit in 2025.

The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission has captured its first views of its destination planet Mercury as it swooped past in a close gravity assist flyby last night.

The two probes will study Mercury’s core and processes on its surface, as well as its magnetic sphere.

BepiColombo became the third spacecraft to reach Mercury after Mariner-10 (1975) and Messenger (2011), the latter ended its operational services in 2015.

The closest of images were taken from an altitude of 1000km above the planet’s surface and pack an astonishing amount of detail.

A joint European-Japanese spacecraft got its first glimpse of Mercury as it swung by the solar system’s innermost planet while on a mission to deliver two probes into orbit in 2025. The BepiColombo mission made the first of six flybys of Mercury at 11:34 p.m. GMT (7:34 p.m. EST) Friday, using the planet’s gravity to…