What a View! Mercury Probe Snaps Stunning Photos of Our Planet during Earth Flyby
By Meghan Bartels | Senior Writer

Space.com - April 10, 2020 | A spacecraft bound for Mercury beamed home stunning views of Earth during a crucial flyby conducted early today (April 10).

BepiColombo, a joint mission conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), is headed to our solar system's innermost planet. But to reach that destination, the spacecraft, which launched in October 2018, needs to conduct a complex sequence of nine different planetary flybys.

An animation of images captured by cameras on the BepiColombo spacecraft shortly before its closest approach to Earth, on April 10, 2020. (Image credit: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

The first of those passes was close to home, as today (April 10), BepiColombo came within 7,877 miles (12,677 kilometers) of Earth.