Check Out These Extraordinary New Images of Mercury – WIRED

At 06:59 Central European time time on January 8, the BepiColombo spacecraft successfully performed its sixth flyby of Mercury, the innermost planet in the solar system. This was a “gravity assist maneuver,” a move that used Mercury’s gravitational pull to alter the BepiColombo vehicle’s course, which will bring it into orbit around the planet by the end of 2026.BepiColombo is a joint mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that will study the composition of Mercury. The vehicle, consisting of two probes—ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter—was launched in the fall of 2018 and had previously been orbiting the sun.When it approaches Mercury again, the vehicle will separate, and the two probes will head for their dedicated polar orbits. BepiColombo’s scientific work is then scheduled for early 2027, when the probes will look for information on how the planet was formed and whether some of its craters contain water in the form of ice.Until then, we will have to make do with the details contained in these three images taken by the vehicle during its most recent flyby.This story originally appeared on WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian.Join the WIRED community to add comments.More From WIREDReviews and Guides© 2025 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices

Source: https://www.wired.com/gallery/images-of-mercury-bepicolombo-mission/