On 8 January 2025, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission flew past Mercury for the sixth time, successfully completing the final "gravity assist manoeuvre" needed to steer it into orbit around the planet in late 2026.
BepiColombo made two flybys of Venus on its journey to Mercury. The spacecraft found carbon and oxygen escaping into space in a previously unexplored region of Venus’ magnetosphere.
Data collected by the BepiColombo spacecraft traces the causes of the strange aurora, which course through the planet's weak magnetosphere.
Scientists are still preparing for the crucial fly-by of Earth by the joint European–Japanese BepiColombo mission to Mercury on 10 April, despite COVID-19 quarantine.
