Group Description

The Bepicolombo spacecraft, on its way to Mercury, will come back for a brief visit to our planet on 10 April, flying at an altitude of only 12,700 km to harness Earth’s gravity and adjust its trajectory towards the innermost planet in the Solar System.

During the flyby, the spacecraft will be visible to observers with access to a small telescope, binocular or camera. 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.

We invite amateurs and professional astronomers in suitable locations to spot the spacecraft flying across the sky and post their pictures on this group. Besides their symbolic value, the observations will be useful for scientists to calibrate some of the onboard instruments and check their science operations tools.

BepiColombo will make its closest approach at 05:24:58 BST (06:24:58 CEST) as it crosses the sky from East to West, reaching a magnitude of 8, meaning that it will not be visible to the naked eye (the faintest sources in the sky visible to the naked eye have a magnitude of 6, with lower magnitude values indicating brighter objects).

BepiColombo is a joint endeavour between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA.