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Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
markmccaughrean ("Mark McCaughrean") wrote:
Coming up this afternoon – the fifth Mercury flyby of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission 🛰️🌚
Closest approach is at 14:23UTC, but at 37,630km, it’s 200 x further out compared to September’s fourth flyby 😬
So no spiffy close-up pictures or movies this time 😢 but several science instruments will be on taking data, including the MERTIS thermal-IR camera 👍
Next & final flyby is on 8 Jan 2025, before Bepi enters orbit in Dec 2026 🙂
More info: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/BepiColombo
