The European Space Agency (ESA) released the stunning snapshots, showing the permanently shadowed craters at the top of the least explored planet in the inner solar system. Cameras also captured views ...

frigid craters that may hold ice dozens of feet thick, even though Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. Mercury's surface can reach a blistering 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius ...

Flying just 183 miles (295 kilometers) above Mercury's surface on Jan. 8, 2025, the spacecraft — which was built in the U.K. — imaged craters on the planet's vast sunlit northern plains.

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 ...

A recent spacecraft flyby over Mercury has ... a series of deep craters near Mercury’s north pole. The craft’s monitoring camera successfully passed over the planet’s harsh “terminator ...

This view of Mercury highlights large craters and impacts. The second image was taken five minutes after the first. It features a clear look at the planet’s volcanic plains and the large ...

water ice hiding in shadowed craters, and an off-center magnetic field in the planet. There’s still a lot about this curious world that scientists have yet to figure out. Why is Mercury so ...

Stunning pictures of Mercury have been published revealing the sunlit plains and possibly icy craters of the smallest planet in the solar system. Three pictures taken by the BepiColombo spacecraft ...

showing icy craters whose floors remain in perpetual shadow. It was the sixth time the spacecraft flew past Mercury, the smallest of the planets in the Earth's solar system, as it completed the ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Three images acquired by the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft during its sixth Mercury flyby ...

It was seven years ago when a planetary mission called BepiColombo departed our world. A joint effort of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the ...

A joint Japanese-European mission to Mercury just made its sixth flyby of the planet, revealing stunning close-ups of the permanently shadowed craters at Mercury's north pole. When you purchase ...