A compilation of about 200 shots calm by the joint European-Jap mission BepiColombo at some level of its first—and handiest—flyby of Earth on 10 April 2020, a manoeuvre wished to regulate its trajectory en route to its fling back and forth location, Mercury. The spacecraft, outfitted with three ‘selfie’ cameras, captured a sequence of elegant shots of our residence planet as it closed in, approached, and finally departed.

On this video, Earth first appears to be like to be as a rotating marble from on the encourage of the spacecraft structure and high-build antenna in the sequence captured on 9 April. Later, in the shots shot gorgeous ahead of closest design, lower than 13 000 km from Earth’s surface, the planet appears to be like to be in bigger ingredient, with the outline of East Africa, the Arabian peninsula and India effectively in perceive, between the spacecraft’s instrument pronounce on the left and its medium-build antenna on the trustworthy. In the end, the sequence of shots taken by BepiColombo as it moved away on 10 and 11 April narrate a crescent Earth gleaming against the cosmic darkness; in direction of the halt of the video, the Moon also makes an appearance, visible as a minute speck of gentle shut to the halt of the spacecraft solar array.