Check out these Amazing New Images of Mercury

At 06:59 Central European time on January 8, the BepiColombo spacecraft successfully performed its sixth flyby of Mercury, the innermost planet of the solar system. It was a “gravity assist maneuver,” a move that used Mercury’s gravitational pull to alter the course of the BepiColombo vehicle, which will take it into orbit around the planet in late 2026.

BepiColombo is a joint mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that will study the composition of Mercury. The vehicle, consisting of two probes – ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter – was launched in the fall of 2018 and had previously orbited the sun.

When it approaches Mercury again, the vehicle will separate, and the two probes will head for their dedicated polar orbits. The scientific work of BepiColombo is then planned for the beginning of 2027, when the probes will seek information about the shape of the planet and whether some of its craters contain water in the form of ice.

Until then, we have to do with the details contained in these three images taken by the vehicle during its last flyby.