{"id":17550,"date":"2020-04-04T04:33:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-04T04:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=17550"},"modified":"2020-06-09T12:09:23","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T12:09:23","slug":"spot-bepicolombo-during-its-goodbye-flyby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/spot-bepicolombo-during-its-goodbye-flyby\/","title":{"rendered":"Spot BepiColombo during its \u2018goodbye flyby\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On 10 April, BepiColombo will be visible to amateur and professional astronomers during its first \u2013 and only \u2013 Earth flyby, as the spacecraft makes its way to Mercury, the innermost planet of the Solar System. The best place to spot it is the southern hemisphere, but observers in southern locations of the northern hemisphere might also catch a parting view of the spacecraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time of the\u00a0flyby<\/a>, BepiColombo will have travelled almost 1.4 billion km \u2013 roughly nine times the distance between Earth and the Sun \u2013 since the European-Japanese mission was launched in October 2018. Yet, passing over at an altitude of just 12 700 km, it will come within just a couple of thousand kilometres of our planet\u2019s exosphere, the outermost layer of the atmosphere, providing us with the last chance to say hello \u2013 and goodbye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the first of a series of\u00a0nine gravity-assist manoeuvres<\/a>\u00a0that the spacecraft will use\u00a0to reach its final destination<\/a>. The next two flybys will see BepiColombo proceed towards Venus in October 2020 and August 2021, respectively, followed by six flybys of Mercury itself to further adjust the trajectory. Eventually, the mission\u2019s two science orbiters \u2013 ESA\u2019s\u00a0Mercury Planetary Orbiter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Mio, the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter<\/a>\u00a0of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) \u2013 will separate from the\u00a0Mercury Transfer Module<\/a>\u00a0in late 2025 and start their scientific operations at Mercury in early 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BepiColombo will make its closest Earth approach at 05:24:58 BST (06:24:58 CEST) on 10 April 2020 as it crosses the sky from East to West. The spacecraft will not be visible to the naked eye, but observers with access to a small telescope, binoculars or a camera might be able to catch the Mercury explorer as it bids farewell to our home planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe flyby has an emotional effect,\u201d says Johannes Benkhoff, BepiColombo Project Scientist at ESA.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the last time that we can see the spacecraft from Earth, so we are inviting amateur and professional astronomers to observe it before it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0scheduled flyby<\/a>\u00a0takes place as billions of people across the world face an exceptional situation caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which limits human movement and therefore also the access to many professional telescopes. Amateur astronomers in suitable locations, far from large cities, can contribute from their home terrace or garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBepiColombo should be visible with a small telescope, accessible to amateur astronomers in the southern hemisphere or in southern parts of the northern hemisphere,\u201d adds Joe Zender, ESA BepiColombo Deputy Project Scientist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you live in southern Europe \u2013 south of Rome or Madrid, for example \u2013 you might be able to glimpse it for a moment, and the further south you are, the longer you should be able to see it. If something appears as a moving star in the field of view of your telescope or camera, that will be Bepi.\u201d<\/p>\n
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On 10 April, BepiColombo will be visible to amateur and professional astronomers during its first \u2013 and only \u2013 Earth flyby, as the spacecraft makes its way to Mercury, the innermost planet of the Solar System.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-space-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo.jpg",889,500,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo-200x200.jpg",200,200,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo-768x432.jpg",750,422,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo.jpg",750,422,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo.jpg",889,500,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo.jpg",889,500,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo.jpg",889,500,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo.jpg",870,489,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo.jpg",600,337,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo.jpg",600,337,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo-760x490.jpg",760,490,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo-550x360.jpg",550,360,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo-95x65.jpg",95,65,true],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo.jpg",640,360,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo.jpg",96,54,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bepicolombo.jpg",150,84,false]},"author_info":{"info":["RevoScience"]},"category_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics<\/a>","tag_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}