---
title: "Spacecraft Shoots Epic Selfies With Venus in the Background"
description: "BepiColombo, the European-Japanese spacecraft headed to Mercury, snapped some incredible selfies while making a close flyby past Venus."
date: "2020-10-15"
modified: "2020-10-15"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacecraft-shoots-epic-venus-selfies"
categories:
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "bepicolombo"
  - "ESA"
  - "JAXA"
  - "Mercury"
  - "the digest"
  - "Venus"
---

# Spacecraft Shoots Epic Selfies With Venus in the Background

![BepiColombo, the European-Japanese spacecraft headed to Mercury, snapped some incredible selfies while making a close flyby past Venus.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/spacecraft-bepicolombo-venus-selfies.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: ESA\</em\>*

## Venus Selfie

BepiColombo, the European-Japanese spacecraft headed to Mercury, [snapped some incredible selfies](<http://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2020/10/Venus_setting>) this week while making a close flyby past Venus — and gathering data that could help flesh out [recent findings](<https://futurism.com/signs-of-life-venus-phosphine>) that suggest there could be life in the inhospitable planet's atmosphere.

Courtesy of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), we get to see all [64 images taken 52 seconds apart](<http://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2020/10/Venus_setting>) in animated GIF form.

The short clip shows the spacecraft swoop by first the day then onto the night side of Venus — coming within 6,660 miles (10,720 kilometers) of the planet, according to the ESA.

![](<http://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2020/10/venus_setting/22264138-3-eng-GB/Venus_setting_pillars.gif>)

## Hai There

The images were taken by Monitoring Camera 2 on board the Mercury Transfer Module, the spacecraft that carries both the ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Japanese space agency's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO).

Venus was far too bright to make out any details on its surface — even the fastest shutter settings on the spacecraft's cameras weren't able to dim it down enough, according to the ESA.

But that didn't stop the spacecraft from pointing some of its scientific instruments at the massive planet.

"We’ll have to be patient while our Venus specialists look carefully into the data, but we hope to be able to provide some atmosphere temperature and density profiles, information about the chemical composition and cloud cover, and on the magnetic environment interaction between the Sun and Venus," Johannes Benkhoff, BepiColombo project scientist at ESA, said in [a statement](<http://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/BepiColombo/BepiColombo_flies_by_Venus_en_route_to_Mercury>).

## Road Trip to Mercury

BepiColombo is using the flyby as a way to pick up speed on its long journey to Mercury, also known as a gravity assist maneuver.

The move was the second of nine total flybys during the craft's seven-year trip to the innermost planet. It will still make one more flyby near Earth, two around Venus, and six total near Mercury to enter its orbit.

Scientists are already looking forward to BepiColombo's next Venus flyby in August 2021 as it will get much closer then.

**READ MORE:** [Venus stars in beguiling new images from BepiColombo spacecraft flyby](<https://www.cnet.com/news/venus-stars-in-beguiling-new-images-from-bepicolombo-spacecraft-flyby/>) \[*CNET*\]

**More on BepiColombo:** *[A Spacecraft Is Going to Hunt Life in Venus' Clouds This Week](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacecraft-going-hunt-life-venus-clouds>)*

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)