<p>A spacecraft bound for Mercury swung by Venus on Thursday, using Earth's neighbour to adjust its course on the way to the solar system's smallest and innermost planet.</p>.<p>Launched almost two years ago, the European-Japanese probe BepiColombo took a black-and-white snapshot of Venus from a distance of 17,000 kilometers (10,560 miles), with some of its own instruments in the frame.</p>.<p>The fly-by is the second of nine so-called planetary gravity assists that the spacecraft needs for its seven-year trip to Mercury. The first, around Earth, took place in April.</p>.<p>The European Space Agency has described the 1.3 billion-euro ($1.5 billion) mission as one of its most challenging yet. Mercury's extreme temperatures, the intense gravity pull of the sun and blistering solar radiation make for hellish conditions.</p>.<p>BepiColombo will make one more fly-by of Venus and six of Mercury itself to slow down before its arrival in 2025. Once there, the spacecraft will split in two, releasing a European orbiter nicknamed Bepi that will swoop into Mercury's inner orbit while Mio, built by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, gathers data from a greater distance. Both probes are designed to cope with temperatures varying from 430 degrees Celsius (806 degrees Fahrenheit) on the side facing the sun, and -180 degrees Celsius (-292 F) in Mercury's shadow.</p>.<p>Researchers hope the BepiColombo mission will help them understand more about Mercury, which is only slightly larger than Earth's moon and has a massive iron core.</p>.<p>The last spacecraft to visit Mercury was NASA's Messenger probe, which ended its mission in 2015 after a four-year orbit. Before that, NASA's Mariner 10 flew past the planet in the mid-1970s. </p>
<p>A spacecraft bound for Mercury swung by Venus on Thursday, using Earth's neighbour to adjust its course on the way to the solar system's smallest and innermost planet.</p>.<p>Launched almost two years ago, the European-Japanese probe BepiColombo took a black-and-white snapshot of Venus from a distance of 17,000 kilometers (10,560 miles), with some of its own instruments in the frame.</p>.<p>The fly-by is the second of nine so-called planetary gravity assists that the spacecraft needs for its seven-year trip to Mercury. The first, around Earth, took place in April.</p>.<p>The European Space Agency has described the 1.3 billion-euro ($1.5 billion) mission as one of its most challenging yet. Mercury's extreme temperatures, the intense gravity pull of the sun and blistering solar radiation make for hellish conditions.</p>.<p>BepiColombo will make one more fly-by of Venus and six of Mercury itself to slow down before its arrival in 2025. Once there, the spacecraft will split in two, releasing a European orbiter nicknamed Bepi that will swoop into Mercury's inner orbit while Mio, built by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, gathers data from a greater distance. Both probes are designed to cope with temperatures varying from 430 degrees Celsius (806 degrees Fahrenheit) on the side facing the sun, and -180 degrees Celsius (-292 F) in Mercury's shadow.</p>.<p>Researchers hope the BepiColombo mission will help them understand more about Mercury, which is only slightly larger than Earth's moon and has a massive iron core.</p>.<p>The last spacecraft to visit Mercury was NASA's Messenger probe, which ended its mission in 2015 after a four-year orbit. Before that, NASA's Mariner 10 flew past the planet in the mid-1970s. </p>