Hello, Venus! Solar Orbiter spacecraft makes first swing past planet – Space.com

The joint U.S.-European Solar Orbiter
spacecraft had an appointment with Venus this morning (Dec. 27), the first in a series of planetary flybys to hone the probe’s orbit on its journey to the sun.
Solar Orbiter reached its closest approach to Venus
at 7:39 a.m. EST (1239 GMT), when the spacecraft was about 4,700 miles (7,500 kilometers) from the top of the planet’s cloud tops. The probe, a partnership between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in February, bound to spend seven…

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