Friday 1st October 2021, The BepiColombo Spacecraft passed Mercury at a distance of 199 KM / 123 miles
Mercury. Friday 1st October 2021, the BepiColombo spacecraft passed Mercury at a distance of 199 KM / 123 miles, the engineering cameras and many of the scientific instruments were used to gather new images and data on The First Rock from the Sun. Fantastic images, very high quality. The first Hermean science has been released from this encounter from the science instruments used on board the BepiColombo spacecraft. The PHEBUS / Probing of Hermean Exosphere By Ultraviolet Spectroscopy, Ultraviolet Spectrometer sampled the extremely tenuous 'atmosphere' or Exosphere of Mercury. Detection of Hydrogen & Calcium were made as the BepiColombo spacecraft exited the deep shadow of Mercury. Whilst both had been observed before by the NASA / JHU / APL MESSENGER / MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging spacecraft during the hugely successful orbital mission, the PHEBUS on BepiColombo was able to determine that the exosphere was virtually non exis