The European-Japanese space probe has thus come closer to Mercury than ever before, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced on X on Wednesday. At 06:58 Swiss time, it was only 295 kilometers away from the surface of the planet.
The flyby was intended to give the probe the necessary gravitational boost to enter an orbit around the innermost planet in our solar system in 2026.
During the flyby, Bepicolombo passed the night side of Mercury and then switched to the sunlit side, as ESA explained in a statement before the flyby. According to the researchers involved in the mission, including scientists from the University of Bern, this offers a unique opportunity to study the permanently shadowed craters at Mercury’s north pole.
Managing in the shadow
According to ESA, one of the biggest challenges during this flyby was the long time the solar-powered probe spent in the shadow of Mercury. For more than 23 minutes, Bepicolombo had to make do without direct sunlight and had to rely solely on its batteries.
More
In space exploration, Switzerland punches above its weight
Nobel laureates, an exoplanet telescope, and instruments on board 50 space missions: In space, Switzerland is everywhere.
Bepicolombo was launched on October 20, 2018 on its journey to the smallest and least explored planet in our solar system. The University of Bern is the project leader for two instruments on board the ESA orbiter: a mass spectrometer called ‘Strofio’, which will analyse Mercury’s atmosphere, and a laser altimeter called ‘Bela’ (Bepicolombo Laser Altimeter), which will create a 3D image of Mercury’s surface.
Adapted from German by DeepL/ac
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
Popular Stories
More
Banking & Fintech
UBS releases ‘hundreds’ of staff in fresh wave of job cuts
Swiss study: Arabica cultivation areas could be halved by 2050
This content was published on
Around the world, the areas most suitable for growing the bean could even shrink by 60% if greenhouse gas emissions remain high.
This content was published on
The UN Human Rights Council approved the launch of this mechanism in Geneva on Friday, to be followed by an International Commission of Inquiry.
More than 100 wolves shot in Switzerland last year
This content was published on
Swiss hunters legally killed 101 wolves between February 1, 2024, and the end of January 2025. A further six died in accidents or from natural causes.
Swiss health office turns to Bluesky against backdrop of US censorship
This content was published on
The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) has joined the Bluesky social network, while US President Donald Trump works with X owner Elon Musk to censor content on official US websites.
Biotech company BioVersys is first Swiss IPO of 2025
This content was published on
The Basel-based biotech company BioVersys made the first initial public offering (IPO) of the year in Switzerland on Friday.
Much more spent on Swiss motorway vote campaigns than budgeted
This content was published on
Opponents and supporters of motorway expansion spent over CHF10 million ($11 million) on their campaigns, around a third more than announced in November.
Swiss researchers monitor animal populations with AI microphone
This content was published on
Researchers in Lausanne are using an intelligent microphone to make the animal world audible. The microphone automatically records animal sounds over large areas and analyses them using AI.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.