The First Images and Videos from the Double Venus Flyby

[Seldom Bucket]

Two spacecraft made historic flybys of Venus last week, and both sent back sci-fi-type views of the mysterious, cloud-shrouded planet.


The Solar Orbiter and BepiColombo spacecraft both used Venus for gravity assists within 33 hours of each other, capturing unique imagery and data during their encounters.


Solar Orbiter, a joint mission between ESA and NASA to study the Sun, sailed past Venus on August 9 at a distance of 7995 km (4967 miles). Then BepiColombo, a collaborative venture between ESA and JAXA to Mercury, skimmed past at just 552 km (343 miles) from the planet’s surface on August 10.



The image above was taken when BepiColumbo was 1,573 km from Venus.


Here’s a video of Solar Orbiter’s view, from the SoloHI imager:

The First Images and Videos from the Double Venus Flyby

Two spacecraft made historic flybys of Venus last week, and both sent back sci-fi-type views of the mysterious, cloud-shrouded planet. The Solar Orbiter and BepiColombo spacecraft both used Venus for gravity assists within 33 hours of each other, capturing unique imagery and data during their...

www.universetoday.com