BepiColombo's first kiss with Mercury!

Over the weekend (on October 1), the joint European/Japanese Space Agencies spacecraft BepiColombo passed Mercury for the first time, skimming just 199 kilometers above the planet’s surface!

That’s a seriously close shave, but it was over Mercury’s nightside so no images were taken. Not long after, though, when it was 2418 km away, it took this extremely cool shot of innermost planet:

Ten minutes after closest approach to Mercury on October 1, 2021, BepiColombo took this image (left) of the pl...