CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A Mercury-bound spacecraft swooped past Earth on Friday, tweaking its round-about path to the solar system’s smallest and innermost planet.
Launched 1 1/2 years ago, Europe and Japan’s Bepi-Colombo spacecraft passed within 8,000 miles (12,700 kilometers) of Earth.
The closest approach occurred over the South Atlantic, with telescopes in Chile catching a glimpse of the speeding spacecraft.
The gravity tug from Earth slowed Bepi-Colombo and put it on a course closer to the sun. It was the first of nine planetary gravity assists — and the only one involving Earth — on the spacecraft’s seven-year journey to Mercury.