The European-Japanese spacecraft BepiColombo has captured close-up photos of Mercury's north pole, revealing permanently shadowed craters and volcanic plains.
The European-Japanese spacecraft BepiColombo has captured stunning close-up photos of Mercury 's north pole. The spacecraft 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 breathtaking snapshots Thursday, showing the permanently shadowed craters at the top of of Mercury .
Cameras also captured views of neighboring volcanic plains and Mercury's largest impact crater, which spans more than 930 miles (1,500 kilometers). The maneuver put the spacecraft on course to enter orbit around Mercury late next year. The spacecraft holds two orbiters, one for Europe and the other for Japan, that will circle the planet's poles. The spacecraft is named for the late Giuseppe (Bepi) Colombo, a 20th-century Italian mathematician who contributed to NASA's Mariner 10 mission to Mercury in the 1970s and, two decades later, to the Italian Space Agency's tethered satellite project that flew on the U.S. space shuttles
SPACE EXPLORATION MERCURY BEPICOLOMBO EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY PLANETARY SCIENCE
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