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BepiColombo: Europe's Mercury space mission in final stretch
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58754882BepiColombo: Europe's Mercury space mission in final stretch
Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent
Published10 hours ago
Europe's first mission to Mercury arrives at its destination in the coming hours.
It'll be the briefest of visits, however. The BepiColombo probe is moving too fast to go into orbit and will fly straight by the planet.
But the diminutive world's gravity will have slowed the craft just a little, and further passes in the coming years will eventually see Bepi take up a stable station around Mercury. That'll be late 2025; patience is required.
For this first flyby, the timing of closest approach is 23:34 GMT, Friday (00:34 BST, Saturday). The flight path will take the probe to within 200km of the planet's surface.
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