BepiColombo's Mercury flyby in 3D
Explore part of Mercury’s surface in greater detail than ever thanks to this 3D reconstruction of the surface. The scene is based on an image captured by the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft’s monitoring camera 3 (M-CAM 3) during its 19 June 2023 close flyby of the planet’s surface.
Use red-green/blue glasses to best enjoy this anaglyph image.
The image was taken from a distance of about 2 982 km, 17 minutes after closest approach. The image is centred at about 105ºE / 6ºS. The north-south-distance is approximately 1325.5 km, and the west-to-east distance corresponds to a maximum of 642 km (it varies with latitude due to the curvature of the surface). The topography at this site has been reconstructed using the ‘shape from shading’ technique. The topography is used to generate anaglyphs that give a visual impression of the terrain. The heights are scaled by a factor of 12.5 to optimize the visual experience in front of a computer or mobile screen.
The image showcases the topography of the region and captures the impressive 600 km-long Beagle Rupes scarp, which cuts through the elongated Sveinsdóttir impact crater. Beagle Rupes bounds a slab of Mercury’s crust that has been thrust westwards by at least 2 km over the adjacent terrain. The scarp curves back at each end more strongly than most other examples on Mercury.
Just below centre, the newly named Manley Crater is seen – assigned for artist Edna Manley. The 218 km-wide crater has a 120 km-wide circular peak-ring of material in its interior resulting from the formation process of the crater. The original basin floor, especially inside this ring, was subsequently flooded by lava that is responsible for the smooth interior texture. Regions like these will be important for BepiColombo’s main science mission, to learn more about Mercury’s geological history. See here for an annotated image capturing some of the features seen in this image.
The gravity assist manoeuvre was the third at Mercury and the sixth of nine flybys overall. During its seven-year cruise to the smallest and innermost planet of the Solar System, BepiColombo makes one flyby at Earth, two at Venus and six at Mercury to help steer on course for Mercury orbit in 2025. The Mercury Transfer Module carries two science orbiters: ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter. They will operate from complementary orbits to study all aspects of mysterious Mercury from its core to surface processes, magnetic field and exosphere, to better understand the origin and evolution of a planet close to its parent star.
