A European-Japanese spacecraft just flew by Venus on its long, winding road to Mercury, snapping some stellar views along the way. .

But to get there, it must first complete a series of nine gravity-assist flybys  —one of Earth, two of Venus and six of Mercury — before finally entering orbit around the solar system's innermost planet.

BepiColombo zoomed by Earth on April 10 and cruised past Venus for the first time at 11:58 p.m.

Related: BepiColombo spacecraft swings past Venus on long road to Mercury!

As BepiColombo swooped within a mere 6,660 miles (10,720 kilometers) of the planet, the three cameras onboard the probe's Mercury Transfer Module captured some spectacular images.

"With each flyby completed, we get a step closer to answering some of these perplexing questions about mysterious planet Mercury," European Space Agency BepiColombo Project Scientist Johannes Benkhoff said in an ESA statement.

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