Stunning new images of Mercury show the scorched planets north pole

New images of the planet Mercury taken by a robotic spacecraft have just been released — and they show the scorched world in fascinating up-close detail.

The European Space Agency (ESA) published the photos as part of BepiColombo, a mission in partnership with Japan to send a craft to the rarely visited, and still quite mysterious, Mercury. This latest round of photos comes via the spacecraft’s sixth flyby of the solar system’s smallest planet, taken some 183 miles (295 kilometers) above Mercury’s surface. For reference, the International Space Station orbits some 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth.

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Let’s go in for a close-up.

A line of shadowy craters can be seen on Mercury’s north pole. Credit: ESA / BepiColombo / MTM

On Mercury’s northern hemisphere, the cratered surface has been smoothed in many places by lava. 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

“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,” said BepiColombo’s Project Scientist at ESA, Geraint Jones, in a statement. “In 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.”

BepiColombo launched in 2018, and is due to enter Mercury’s orbit (as opposed to just flying by) in late 2026. The spacecraft will then split into two orbiters that will observe the planet.

You can visit the ESA’s site for a more detailed breakdown of those images, or read about previous flybys here.

Mashable