Solar Orbiter zipped by Venus earlier this week, just one day ahead of the Mercury-bound probe BepiColombo.
The sun-exploring spacecraft Solar Orbiter has captured this video of a glowing crescent of Venus as it flew past the planet during an orbit adjustment maneuver on Monday (Aug 9).
The video was taken by Solar Orbiter’s Heliospheric Imager, or SoloHI, as the joint European Space Agency (ESA)/NASA satellite zipped by the hot and cloudy planet at a distance of 4,967 miles (7,995 kilometers).