The BepiColombo spacecraft has sent back some incredibly detailed images of Mercury’s north pole. The snapshots were collected during its closest ever flyby of our solar system’s smallest planet.

But, in fact, it’s actually really difficult to reach the innermost planet of our solar system—which makes it that much more impressive that the ESA and JAXA’s BepiColombo mission has almost ...

This is one of a series of images taken by the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission on 8 January 2025 as the spacecraft sped by for its sixth and final gravity assist manoeuvre at the planet. Flying over ...

BepiColombo, the current spacecraft studying Mercury, is a joint mission of the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Launched October 20, 2018, it’s actually two ...

Europe and Japan’s BepiColombo beamed back close-up images of the solar system’s innermost planet, flying through Mercury’s shadow to peer directly onto craters that are permanently hidden ...

the BepiColombo spacecraft), using an integration time of 40 milliseconds. Taken from around 787 km, the surface resolution in this photograph is around 730 m/pixel. Venus may be grabbing all of ...

Credit: ESA / BepiColombo / MTM The Nathair Facula, the aftermath of Mercury's largest volcanic explosion, and a future target for BepiColombo's data gathering. Credit: ESA / BepiColombo / MTM ...

Mercury is coming into better focus through the BepiColombo mission. The spacecraft flew by the planet on Jan. 8, snapping a stunning set of closeups as it went. The images show the planet’s ...

Three images acquired by the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft during its sixth Mercury flyby on Jan. 8, as selected by the ESA. | Credit: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM The BepiColombo spacecraft has made its ...