Left: Pioneer 10’s view of Jupiter in March 1973. Right: Webb Telescope’s view of Jupiter in July 2022. Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Judy Schmidt
For centuries, astronomers were limited to ground-based observations of the planets, but now we use spacecraft to capture close-up views of our neighboring worlds. Excitingly, our views of solar system planets have been getting progressively better over the decades, as these images attest.
The dawn of the Space Age finally made it possible for humankind to capture close-up views of astronomical objects. We haven’t wasted this opportunity, sending probes to every planet in our solar system and even to Pluto, a dwarf planet located over 5 billion miles (8 billion kilometers) away.
The first missions to the planets began in the 1960s, and it’s something we still get excited about. We’ve assembled a series of photos showing some of our earliest images of the planets compared to similar portraits captured during recent missions. Regardless of the era or the quality, each one has a story to tell, and each continues to stir the imagination.
Two spacecraft zipped past Venus at nearly time this week, and we’re steadily getting more data from this rare double flyby. The research teams have even translated some of this data into sounds, which you can hear below.
BepiColombo is a joint mission to Mercury by the Japanese space agency JAXA and the European Space Agency, and the Solar Orbiter is a joint mission between the ESA and NASA. Neither mission is focused on Venus; both spacecraft needed the planet for gravity assists to get them on the correct trajectories for their ultimate destinations. But the teams weren’t going to pass up the opportunity to observe Venus from close range, as detailed in a recent ESA blog post.
BepiColombo’s first image of Venus came to Earth a few days ago. The Italian Spring Accelerometer (ISA) aboard the spacecraft recorded the craft’s acceleration as it Venus whipped it around. The research team working on that instrument has since translated the acceleration data into audible frequencies, so we can actually hear BepiColombo’s transit of Venus, in a sense. Check it out:
The audio sounds a bit like reverberations through a hollow pipe. A couple clanks here and there can be attributed to the way Venus’s gravity affected the spacecraft, according to the ESA release, and the way that BepiColombo reacted to temperature increases as it passed the planet. (The temperature increased by some 230 degrees Fahrenheit, from -148 degrees to a balmy 50 degrees).
The teams were also able to translate into sound the fluctuations in Venus’s magnetic field, using the magnetometers aboard both spacecraft. In the audio below, one can hear how the solar wind interacts with the planet.
That data sounds a bit more… staticky? The frequency changes as BepiColombo passed into the place where Venus’s magnetosphere and the solar wind meet (0:18 in the video). The ESA said that a more detailed analysis of the data collected by both spacecraft will take place over the next several weeks.
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The Solar Orbiter caught a dramatic view of the planet’s glare, as you can see here:
The Solar Orbiter will continue to make routine swings past Venus as it bounces between the planet and the Sun, collecting data on our star’s activity over the course of the 11-year solar cycle. The orbiter will fly by Earth on November 27, the last time it will pass our pale blue dot.
The BepiColombo mission got this close-up image of the planet Venus as it passed by on August 10. The spacecraft was using Venus for a gravity assist on its way to its ultimate destination, Mercury. It’s one of two spacecraft zipping by the planet this week, the other being Solar Orbiter, which flew past yesterday.
BepiColombo, a joint mission of the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, is actually made of two attached orbiters: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter. The former will map the planet in great detail, and the latter will study its magnetosphere. But in order for all that to happen, the spacecraft needed to slingshot itself around Venus. By a lucky coincidence, Solar Orbiter was also in the neighborhood, giving scientists a unique observation opportunity. We’re still awaiting news of how Solar Orbiter’s flyby yesterday went.
This image of a looming Venus was taken by BepiColombo when it was 977 miles away, according to a release from the ESA. It was taken by the spacecraft’s third monitoring camera aboard the Mercury Transfer Module. Lightly processed (to enhance the contrast), the image captures the Mercury Planetary Orbiter’s antenna and part of BepiColombo’s body.
It was BepiColombo’s second gravity assist of Venus and the third of nine total flybys the spacecraft is scheduled to perform as it get ever nearer to Mercury. BepiColombo’s closest approach of Venus today came in at just under 350 miles above the planet’s surface, making it a pretty close shave, especially in comparison to Solar Orbiter, which only got to about 5,000 miles of the planet yesterday, according to the ESA.
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BepiColombo’s future flybys will be of the planet Mercury and will slow the spacecraft down enough to enter the planet’s orbit. The first of those is slated for early October.
More: Rare Back-to-Back Flybys of Venus Will Happen Next Week
Two spacecraft will fly past either side of Venus next week in the span of just 33 hours. The rare double flyby gives researchers an opportunity to observe the planet from multiple vantage points at nearly the same time.
The two vehicles are the Solar Orbiter and the BepiColombo Mercury mission. The former is a European Space Agency collaboration with NASA and the latter is an ESA collaboration with the Japanese space agency, JAXA. The two spacecraft will fly by Venus on August 9 and 10, respectively, with the Solar Orbiter passing from a distance of about 5,000 miles and BepiColombo practically grazing the planet at just 350 miles away.
I know what you’re thinking. One of these orbiters is clearly focused on the Sun, and the other on Mercury. What gives? Why are they messing with Venus? Well, both spacecraft are relying on gravity assists to get to their final destinations in the solar system. Gravity assists are when spacecraft use the gravitational fields of cosmic objects to slingshot into a new trajectory, saving fuel.
Conveniently, the assists require spacecraft to get relatively near those objects, giving researchers on Earth some bonus data. The Solar Orbiter has been zipping through these gravity assists since last year; it’s scheduled to make a total of six, five of which are Venus flybys. BepiColombo made one Earth flyby in April 2020 and a Venus flyby last October, and is scheduled to make six flybys of Mercury by 2025.
An artist’s mock-up of BepiColombo making a close pass of Venus.
During the flyby next week, neither craft will be able to image Venus in high-resolution with their science cameras, according to an ESA press release. The Solar Orbiter will need to stay focused on—you guessed it—the Sun, and BepiColombo’s main camera is ensconced in the craft’s transfer module. But two of BepiColombo’s monitoring cameras will take some black-and-white shots as it approaches and passes Venus. Those images are expected to arrive on Earth within 24 hours after they’re taken. The Solar Orbiter’s SoloHI imager might be able to check out Venus’ nightside.
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BepiColombo will see Mercury for the first time in early October, and the Solar Orbiter will make its final pass by Earth in late November. The data from the upcoming Venus flybys could eventually be of use to the ESA’s EnVision orbiter, set to launch for Venus in the early 2030s. Even after the Solar Orbiter finishes visiting Earth, it’ll routinely swing by Venus, which will help it get into position to better view the Sun. In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed we get some neat pictures from these spacecraft next week.
More: Solar Orbiter Spots Previously Unknown ‘Campfires’ on the Sun