Spacecraft Captures Spectacularly Detailed Images of Mercury’s Hidden Surface

The European and Japanese station BepiColombo transmitted close-up images of the innermost planet of the solar system flying through the shadow of Mercury to reveal the craters that are constantly hidden in the shadows.

BepiColombo, consisting of two connected spacecraft, flew past Mercury for the sixth and final time on Wednesday, using the planet’s gravitational pull to adjust its trajectory for eventual entry into orbit in 2026. mission launched in October 2018 as a joint venture between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), each of which will provide an orbiter to explore Mercury. On its most recent flyby, the twin spacecraft passed Mercury’s surface at a distance of about 180 miles (295 kilometers), according to the company. ESA.

From this close range, BepiColombo captured images of Mercury’s cratered surface, starting from the cold, permanently dark night side of the planet near the north pole and then moving toward its sunlit northern regions.

Using surveillance cameras (M-CAM 1), BepiColombo obtained for the first time a close-up view of the boundary separating the day and night sides of Mercury. In the image above, you can see the edges of the Prokofiev, Kandinsky, Tolkien and Gordimer craters scattered across Mercury’s surface, casting permanent shadows that may contain pockets of frozen water.

Indeed, a key goal of the mission is to find out whether Mercury retains water in its shadow, despite its close proximity to the Sun.

The massive Caloris Basin, Mercury’s largest impact crater, extends more than 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) across and is visible in the lower left corner of the image.

Although Mercury is a mostly dark planet, its younger features (or more recent scars) appear brighter on the surface. Scientists aren’t entirely sure what Mercury is made of, but material mined from beneath the planet’s surface gradually darkens over time.

This third image highlights volcanic activity and strong impacts as key factors behind Mercury’s brighter regions. “The bright spot near the top edge of the planet in this image is the Natar plume, the aftermath of Mercury’s largest volcanic explosion. In its center there is a volcanic crater about 40 km long. [25 miles] At least three major eruptions have occurred in this area,” ESA writes.

BepiColombo is only the third spacecraft to visit Mercury; The elusive planet is difficult to reach due to the powerful gravitational pull of the Sun. The two BepiColombo probes, consisting of the European Space Agency’s Mercury Planet Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), were launched together on the same spacecraft and will each enter their respective orbit around Mercury in late 2026 . The mission made its first flyby. planet in October 2021 and returns magnificent Close-up of the smallest planet in the solar systemas well as valuable data about the mysterious planet.

“The main phase of the BepiColombo mission may not begin for two years, but all six of its flybys of Mercury have given us invaluable new information about the little-explored planet. The BepiColombo team will be working hard over the next few weeks to unravel as many of Mercury’s mysteries as possible with data from this flyby,” Geraint Jones, BepiColombo project scientist at ESA, said in a statement.