BepiColombo captures this beautiful view of Mercury’s rich geological landscape during today's flyby

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The BepiColombo mission's first photograph of Mercury, taken during today's flyby as part of a gravity assist manoeuvre, has been made public by the European Space Agency

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The organisation announced that further photos from today's flyby would be made public tomorrow.

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The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are working together on the BepiColombo project (JAXA)

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The spacecraft will make nine flybys of Mercury on its seven-year journey to the smallest planet in our solar system

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Making the gravity assist manoeuvre the fifth overall and the second at Mercury.

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The Mercury Transfer Module's Monitoring Camera 2 captured this breathtaking image of Mercury's diverse geological environment at 09:49:22 UTC

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When the spacecraft was just 920 kilometres from the planet's surface. Earlier, at 09:44 UTC, there was a near approach of around 200 kilometres.

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Along with other geological features, enormous impact craters, including a 200 km wide multi-ringed basin that is partially obscured by the magnetometer boom, are plainly seen in this image.

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In a statement on Thursday, the ESA stated that the quick look was "a tantalising sample of the rich geology that BepiColombo is planned to examine in more detail from orbit."

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