The mission will have five more flybys before entering orbit

The BepiColombo spacecraft made its first flyby of Mercury on 1 October, passing just 200km from the planet’s surface and capturing its first up-close image. The pass was one of nine gravity assist manoeuvres – one at Earth, two at Venus, six at Mercury – where the spacecraft gets a free speed adjustment by swinging past a planet. This should allow BepiColombo to match speeds with Mercury and enter orbit in 2025.

These initial images were snapped from a distance of 2,418km from the planet’s Northern Hemisphere, showing the Sihtu Planitia area, which was once smoothed over by a flood of lava that has now become pockmarked by meteor strikes. It also shows the 166km-wide Lermontov crater, containing a feature unique to Mercury – hollows, where volatile elements have explosively escaped. www.esa.int

IMAGES: ESA/BEPICOLUMBO/MTM