BepiColombo, a joint European-Japanese mission, completed its latest flyby of Mercury, sending back a sneak peek of the cratered planet it will begin to orbit in 2026.
On Thursday, a spacecraft operated by the European Space Agency and Japan made its closest approach yet to Mercury, sending back sharp, black-and-white images of the planet’s barren, speckled surface at sunrise.
The spacecraft, BepiColombo, gave scientists their first clear view of Mercury’s south pole. It also captured several of the planet’s craters, including those with unusual rings of peaks within the basin’s rim.
David Rothery, a volcanologist at the Open University in England, refers to Mercury as “Lord of the Peak Rings.”
The latest flyby “was perfect,” said Dr. Rothery, who is a member of BepiColombo’s science team. “It was exactly what I hoped to see, but better quality, showing more detail than I’d hoped.”
Johannes Benkhoff, the project scientist for BepiColombo at the European Space Agency, wrote in an email that the new images made him “shout for joy.” He added, “It is such a relief when you find out that everything worked as planned.”
A joint mission between the European and Japanese space agencies, BepiColombo launched in 2018. It will go into orbit around Mercury in 2026, about a year after its original arrival time. The delay was prompted by efforts to overcome problems with the spacecraft’s thrusters.