• ESA to conduct BepiColombo flyby amid coronavirus crisis (ESA)
• Bepicolombo – Exploring Mercury (ESA)
• Science With Bepicolombo (ESA)

Let’s face it, we could all use a little positive excitement right now. While I can’t offer you anything amazing right this moment, we do have two things that we need to be preparing for. The first is the flyby of the Bepicolombo mission on April 10. At 6:25 am Central European Time, this interplanetary spacecraft will approach within 12,700 km of Earth. This will put it significantly closer to us than geostationary satellites, and will allow it to use the Earth’s gravity to change its orbit to help it rendezvous with Mercury in late 2025. If you are at equatorial or southern latitudes, and you have a small telescope you can point at just the right place, you may be able to see this blip zip by. Observing tools and information on what ESA is going to be doing during the encounter will all be linked to from DailySpace.org, and if there are any streams to watch, we’ll be hosting watch parties on twitch.tv/CosmoQuestX.