{"id":195717,"date":"2024-09-05T11:22:57","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T16:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/09\/mercury-spacecraft-drops-epic-new-photos-from-just-102-miles-above"},"modified":"2024-09-05T11:22:57","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T16:22:57","slug":"mercury-spacecraft-drops-epic-new-photos-from-just-102-miles-above","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/09\/mercury-spacecraft-drops-epic-new-photos-from-just-102-miles-above","title":{"rendered":"Mercury: Spacecraft Drops Epic New Photos From Just 102 Miles Above"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/mercury-spacecraft-drops-epic-new-photos-from-just-102-miles-above3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The first images are back from a spacecraft that, on Sept. 4, got to within just 102.5 miles (165 kilometers) of the surface of Mercury, the closest it will ever get. The European Space Agency\u2019s $1.8 billion BepiColombo vehicle snapped images of the inner planet\u2019s polar regions and cratered surface as it zoomed by.<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0Yp-q1wqgig?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The flyby was the seventh of its long journey around the solar system\u2014one of Earth, two of Venus and three of Mercury\u2014as it attempts to lose energy and steer itself into orbit around Mercury during <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0Yp-q1wqgig\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0Yp-q1wqgig\" aria-label=\"a long and complex journey\">a long and complex journey<\/a>. This latest flyby reduced the spacecraft\u2019s speed and changed its direction.<\/p>\n<p>During the flyby, which culminated at 21:48 UTC on Sept. 4, BepiColombo took images and tested 10 scientific instruments, which included taking measurements of how the solar wind interacts with the planet\u2019s magnetic field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first images are back from a spacecraft that, on Sept. 4, got to within just 102.5 miles (165 kilometers) of the surface of Mercury, the closest it will ever get. The European Space Agency\u2019s $1.8 billion BepiColombo vehicle snapped images of the inner planet\u2019s polar regions and cratered surface as it zoomed by. The [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}