BepiColombo’s close Venus encounter

A stunning sequence of 89 images taken by the monitoring cameras on board the European-Japanese BepiColombo mission to Mercury, as the spacecraft made a close approach of Venus on 10 August 2021. The sequence includes images from all three Monitoring Cameras (MCAM) onboard the Mercury Transfer Module, which provides black-and-white snapshots in 1024 x 1024 pixel resolution. It is not possible to image with the high-resolution camera suite during the cruise phase. The images have been lightly processed to enhance contrast and use the full dynamic range. A small amount of optical vignetting is seen in the corners of some of the images. The first image is from MCAM 1, and was taken at 13:41:02 UTC, prior to close approach. As such, the spacecraft was still on the nightside of the planet, but the dayside can just be seen creeping into view. Part of the spacecraft’s solar array can also be seen. The second image was taken by MCAM 2 at 13:51:56 UTC, two seconds after closest approach. With the Venus surface just