Probe flys by Venus, snaps photo on its way to Mercury

(ESA/BepiColombo/MTM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0)

(DARMSTADT, Germany) The European-Japanese probe BepiColombo passed Venus on Thursday on its way to Mercury, snapping a photo along the way, according to the Associated Press.

The probe flew by Venus to get the second of nine planetary gravity assists to help swing it toward Mercury. According to a release from the European Space Agency, the gravity assists help alter the speed and direction of the probe.

Elsa Montagnon, ESA’s BepiColombo Spacecraft operations manager, said, "The flyby itself was very successful. The only difference to normal cruise phase operations is that near to Venus we have to temporarily close the shutter of any of the star trackers that are expected to be blinded by the planet, similar to closing your eyes to avoid looking at the Sun."

The probe is expected to conduct one more flyby of Venus before reaching Mercury in 2025, where it will fly by six times to slow down. Once it arrives, the probe will split in two. The European Bepi orbiter will drift into the Swift Planet's inner orbit for closer observations and the Japanese-made Mio will orbit and gather data from farther out.

According to the AP, the European Space Agency has described the mission as one of its most difficult due to Mercury's extreme temperatures and its proximity to the sun, which exerts a strong gravitational pull on the planet and hits the planet with intense solar radiation.

To withstand the extreme conditions, the Bepi and Mio were built to handle temperatures up to 806 degrees Fahrenheit on the sun-facing side and -292 degrees in the planet's shadow.

The researchers hope to learn a lot about Mercury, which was last visited in 2015 by NASA's Messenger probe.

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