BepiColombo made its sixth and final flyby of Mercury on Wed (Jan. 8) capturing images of the tiny planet hinting at the mysteries it will soon investigate.

The European and Japanese robotic explorer swooped as close as 183 miles (295 kilometers) above Mercury’s night side before passing directly over the planet’s north pole. The European Space Agency released the stunning snapshots Thursday, showing the permanently shadowed craters at the top of of our solar system’s smallest, innermost planet.

In 2026, the Bepicolombo Mercury Transfer Module will return to Mercury once again to release the ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, aiming to spend 2027 collecting data from their individual altitudes and orientations above the planet.

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.

Barely larger than our own Moon, Mercury orbits precariously close to the Sun at an average distance of roughly 58 million kilometres.

A spacecraft has beamed back some of the best close-up photos ever of Mercury’s north pole. The European and Japanese robotic explorer swooped as close as 183 miles (295 kilometers) above Mercury before passing directly over the planet's north pole.

The newly released images show permanently dark craters spotting the surface of the planet closest to our Sun. Nearby volcanic plains and the largest impact cater on Mercury –over 930 miles wide–are also visible.

Stevenage-built BepiColombo makes final flyby of Mercury ahead of entering the plant's orbit in 2026.

A spacecraft making its final flyby of Mercury has captured incredible images. BepiColombo spacecraft made its sixth pass of the closest planet to the sun on Jan. 8. It flew just a few hundred kilometers above the planet's surface,