...the who's who,
and the what's what 
of the space industry

Space Careers

news Space News

Search News Archive

Title

Article text

Keyword

  • Home
  • News
  • Fly over Mercury with BepiColombo

Fly over Mercury with BepiColombo

Written by  Friday, 13 September 2024 09:30
Write a comment
Video: 00:01:15

See Mercury in a whole new light, through the ‘eyes’ of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft, as it sped past Mercury during its latest encounter on 4 September 2024.

During the flyby, BepiColombo’s three monitoring cameras (M-CAMs) captured detailed images of the planet’s cratered surface. Within these images, Mercury scientists identified various geological features that BepiColombo will study in more detail once in orbit around the planet.

One such feature, shown in this video, is the newly named Stoddart crater. The name ‘Stoddart’ – after artist Margaret Olrog Stoddart (1865–1934) – was recently assigned following a request from the M-CAM

See Mercury in a whole new light, through the ‘eyes’ of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft, as it sped past Mercury during its latest encounter on 4 September 2024.

During the flyby, BepiColombo’s three monitoring cameras (M-CAMs) captured detailed images of the planet’s cratered surface. Within these images, Mercury scientists identified various geological features that BepiColombo will study in more detail once in orbit around the planet.

One such feature, shown in this video, is the newly named Stoddart crater. The name ‘Stoddart’ – after artist Margaret Olrog Stoddart (1865–1934) – was recently assigned following a request from the M-CAM team, who realised that this crater would be visible in these images and decided it would be worth naming considering its potential interest for scientists in the future.

Stoddart is a special type of crater called a ‘peak ring basin’. These mysterious craters are created by powerful asteroid or comet impacts, and are named after the inner ring of peaks on an otherwise flattish floor.

The video then pans around to the larger Raphael crater. Many newer craters dot the surface and walls of Raphel, giving an indication of Mercury’s violent history.

At the end of the video the camera zooms out to put the region into perspective.

The 3D scene was reconstructed from a single image using the ‘Shape from Shading’ method. Shape from Shading uses a reflectance model to render an artificial image of the surface from an initial 3D model. This render is compared to the original image, and the 3D model is subsequently improved to minimise the difference between the images. The heights in the video are not to scale. The flyover was created in Unity.

The 4 September gravity assist flyby was the fourth at Mercury and the seventh of nine planetary flybys overall. During its eight-year cruise to the smallest and innermost planet of the Solar System, BepiColombo makes one flyby at Earth, two at Venus and six at Mercury, to help steer itself on course for entering orbit around Mercury in 2026.

BepiColombo is an international collaboration between ESA and JAXA.

BepiColombo’s best images yet highlight fourth Mercury flyby

BepiColombo images in ESA’s Planetary Science Archive


Read more from original source...

You must login to post a comment.
Loading comment... The comment will be refreshed after 00:00.

Be the first to comment.

Interested in Space?

Hit the buttons below to follow us...