"BepiColombo's main mission phase may only start two years from now, but all six of its flybys of Mercury have given us invaluable new information about the little-explored planet." The ...

ESA/BepiColombo/MTM The European Space Agency (ESA)’s BepiColombo mission has made another flyby of Mercury, capturing fascinating images of this lesser-studied inner planet. On January 8 ...

The European-Japanese BepiColombo spacecraft, which has been studying Mercury since its launch in 2018, flew just 183 miles above the planet's night side during its final flyby of the planet.

During its latest flyby, the twin spacecraft flew above the surface of Mercury at a distance of around 180 miles (295 kilometers), according to ESA. From this close distance, BepiColombo captured ...

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.

“One needs a lot of fuel with a very big rocket for launch, or one can use the help of the planets and do planetary flybys,” adds Johannes Benkhoff, ESA BepiColombo Project Scientist.

The flyby images, all black-and-white 1024x1024 pixel snapshots, come from two M-CAM monitoring cameras on BepiColombo that are mostly there to monitor the spacecraft's solar panels, antenna and ...

That sixth flyby of Mercury occurred Jan. 8, 2025. On that date, BepiColombo flew just 183 miles (295 kilometers) above the planet’s surface, then shortly after over its north pole. As it did ...

“During the next few weeks, the BepiColombo team will work hard to unravel as many of Mercury’s mysteries with the data from this flyby as we can,” said the ESA’s Geraint Jones, the ...

European Space Agency After this flyby the monitoring cameras on the spacecraft will be unable to capture any more close up images of Mercury Frank Budnik, BepiColombo flight dynamics manager said ...

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 ...

The BepiColombo spacecraft has made its sixth and final flyby of the closest planet to the sun, Mercury, capturing some incredible images of the tiny world. The photos offer tantalizing hints about ...