Professor Carole Mundell

@cmundell.esa.int

Director of Science, @esa.int; Head of the European Space Astronomy Centre, Madrid. Astrophysicist, science diplomat, ex-Science Council President; ex-Chief Scientist Adviser & International Science Envoy, UK FCDO. She/her. My views.

@esa.intReposted by @cmundell.esa.int

Pokémon is heading to space with ESA. 🚀⚡

For #WorldSpaceWeek2026, Pokémon and ESA are teaming up to inspire the next generation of explorers. A special Pikachu plush has even travelled to the International Space Station with ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot!

(Credits: ESA/NASA S. Adenot)

@science.esa.intReposted by @cmundell.esa.int

Together, the stacked spacecraft travelled nine billion km, did 22 loops around the Sun and performed nine planetary flybys.

MTM's propulsion system is dependent on Bepi's computer control, so after today, MTM will float around the Sun indefinitely.

🔭 🧪 #planetsci 2/3

BepiColombo appears to ‘hug’ Mercury in this image taken by the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission on 19 June 2023 as the spacecraft sped by for its third of three gravity assist manoeuvres at the planet. The back of the Mercury Planetary Orbiter’s high-gain antenna and part of the spacecraft’s body is visible in front of Mercury.Collage of images captured by BepiColombo’s monitoring camera during the Venus flyby on 15 October 2020. Two rows of four images each show parts of the BepiColombo spacecraft with planet Venus in the background.A view of Earth captured by one of the MCAM selfie cameras on board BepiColombo, as the spacecraft zoomed past the planet during its first and only Earth flyby on 10 April 2020.