Baby Colombo captures scenes from the planet Mercury for the first time

GMT 16:42 02.10.2021Copy the link

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The European Space Agency (ESA) mission team and Japanese JAXA (Baby Colombo) captured beautiful views of Mercury as the spacecraft approached the planet using gravity last night .

The maximum approach occurred at 23:34 UTC on October 1 at an altitude of 199 km above the surface of the planet.

Images were collected from the spacecraft’s surveillance cameras, as well as scientific data from a number of devices. The images have already been uploaded during the morning of Saturday, according to the ESA website.

“The flight was technically flawless for the spacecraft, and it’s amazing to finally see our target planet,” said Elsa Montagnion, director of spacecraft operations for the mission.

The surveillance cameras provide black and white images at 1024 x 1024 pixels and are placed in the Mercury transfer unit so that it also captures the structural elements of the spacecraft, including the antennas and the magnetometer arm.

The images were acquired approximately five minutes after the approach time and up to four hours after. Due to the flight reaching the night side of the planet, conditions were not ideal for taking pictures directly from the nearest point, so the closest picture was taken at a distance of about 1000 km.

In many images, it is possible to identify large impact craters.