A pair of spacecraft draw closer to Mercury after nearly decade-long voyage

12 days ago by Rimu to c/space_astronomy

Two Mercury-bound spacecraft left their mother ship behind on Thursday and headed down the home stretch of their nearly decade-long voyage to the solar system's smallest and closest-to-the-sun planet.

If all goes well, the conjoined spacecraft known as BepiColombo will enter orbit around Mercury in November and split from each other in December to map and study the entire planet from different altitudes.

Zachariah 3 points 12 days ago

Images: https://www.esa.int/...

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rimu 3 points 12 days ago

A good start! Probably once they get into orbit there'll be a flood of imagery.

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