“We needed nine flybys (one at Earth, two at Venus, and six at Mercury) to slow down our spacecraft and bring it into a good position to enter the orbit of Mercury.” Sequence of 89 images ...

Europe's BepiColombo mission will enter orbit of the solar system's first planet in about two years, but it's been whizzing past Mercury regularly as it lines up its approach. The ESA reports that ...

Mercury takes only 88 Earth days to orbit the sun.

taking advantage of the planet’s gravity to adjust its course so it can enter orbit in 2026. On the flyby, the spacecraft passed within just 180 miles of Mercury’s surface, enabling it to ...

and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetosphere Orbiter (MMO), launched together on a single spacecraft, and each will enter its respective orbit around Mercury in late 2026. The mission carried out its first ...

Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox The flyby was intended to give the probe the necessary gravitational boost to enter an orbit around ... night side of Mercury and then ...

One of the images captured by BepiColombo during its sixth flyby. Stunning detailed images of Mercury have been clicked by BepiColombo as it made its sixth and final flyby ahead of entering the ...

Dwarf planet Pluto, on the other hand, has a fairly squashed orbit. Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, has the most eccentric orbit, with the difference between the distance at perihelion and ...

Europe's BepiColombo mission will enter orbit of the solar system's first planet in about two years, but it's been whizzing past Mercury regularly as it lines up its approach. The ESA reports that ...