Explanation:
What it would look like to approach planet Earth?
Such an event was recorded visually in great detail by
ESA's and
JAXA's robotic
BepiColombo
spacecraft last month as it swung back past Earth on its journey in to the planet
Mercury.
Earth
can be seen rotating on approach as it comes out
from behind the spacecraft's high-gain antenna in this nearly 10-hour time-lapse video.
The Earth is so bright that
no background stars are visible.
Launched in 2018,
the robotic
BepiColombo used the
gravity
of Earth to adjust its course, the first of
nine planetary flybys over the next seven years -- but the only one
involving Earth.
Scheduled to enter orbit in 2025, BepiColombo will take images and data of the
surface and magnetic field of
Mercury in an effort to
better understand the
early evolution of our Solar System and its innermost planet.
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