{"id":619521,"date":"2026-09-09T17:40:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T17:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/619521\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T17:40:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T17:40:34","slug":"10-billion-km-in-3-minutes-epic-video-captures-a-spacecrafts-8-year-odyssey-to-planet-mercury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/619521\/","title":{"rendered":"10 billion km in 3 minutes! Epic video captures a spacecraft’s 8-year odyssey to planet Mercury"},"content":{"rendered":"

After nearly eight years navigating the inner Solar System, the BepiColombo mission has released incredible footage showing the spacecraft’s voyage through the inner Solar System.<\/p>\n

The video shows the BepiColombo<\/a> probe zooming past planets Venus and Mercury, completing gravity-assist manoeuvres on its way to enter orbit around Mercury<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn artist\u2019s impression of BepiColombo approaching Mercury.
Credit: ESA\/ATG medialab; Mercury: NASA\/JPL<\/p>\n

It’s been compiled by European Space Agency and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency scientists to chronicle the spacecraft\u2019s voyage toward the innermost planet of our Solar System.<\/p>\n

Since its launch on October 20, 2018, BepiColombo has covered 9.9 billion km (6 billion miles) across the Solar System, completing nine separate gravity assists that have taken it past Earth once, Venus twice and Mercury six times.<\/p>\n

These manoeuvres are used to reposition and slow down the spacecraft to place it into orbit around Mercury.<\/p>\n

Video showing BepiColombo’s journey across the Solar System. Credit: ESA\/BepiColombo\/MTM. Acknowledgement: Image and video processing: Geraint Jones. Music track: Face The Future by Aylex. Music source: https:\/\/freetouse.com\/music Free Background Music (No Copyright)
\nA selfie view of the Solar System<\/p>\n

While individual photos and clips captured by BepiColombo the spacecraft have been released before \u2013 including its final glimpse of Earth in 2020<\/a> \u2013 this marks the first time ESA and JAXA have stitched the complete voyage together into one video.<\/p>\n

The footage comes from three monitoring cameras (M-CAMs) mounted on the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM), which is the spacecraft responsible for carrying two science orbiters across the Solar System.<\/p>\n

\"ImageImage of Mercury craters Prokofiev, Kandinsky, Tolkien and Gordimer captured by the BepiColombo spacecraft, 8 January 2025. Credit: ESA\/BepiColombo\/MTM<\/p>\n

ESA says that, because these engineering cameras lack a traditional shutter mechanism, original frames captured by BepiColombo showed vertical streak artefacts caused by light hitting the detectors.<\/p>\n

Image processing teams have cleaned up the artefacts to show views of the planets drifting past in the background.<\/p>\n

\"AA view of Mercury during Bepi Colombo’s flyby on 19 June 2023, 20:29 UTC. Credit: ESA\/BepiColombo\/MTM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
\nThe final insertion begins<\/p>\n

On September 3, 2026, BepiColombo began its final arrival<\/a> sequence around Mercury as the Mercury Transfer Module officially separated from the two science probes.<\/p>\n

The transfer module will drift past Mercury at a distance of roughly 130,000 km (81,000 miles) in late October 2026 before entering a permanent orbit around the Sun.<\/p>\n

ESA\u2019s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA\u2019s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio) remain stacked together as they prepare to enter Mercury\u2019s orbit in November 2026.<\/p>\n

On December 9\u201310, 2026, the two craft will decouple from one another, marking the first time in history that two independent spacecraft will orbit Mercury at the same time, mapping the planet’s surface, composition and magnetic environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After nearly eight years navigating the inner Solar System, the BepiColombo mission has released incredible footage showing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-619521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}