This is one of a series of images taken by the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission on 8 January 2025 as the spacecraft sped by for its sixth and final gravity assist manoeuvre at the planet.
Monitoring camera 2 (M-CAM 2) took this photo at 07:17 CET, when the spacecraft was about 2103 km from the planet’s surface. The spacecraft’s closest approach of 295 km took place on the planet's night side at 06:59 CET.
The bright patch near the planet's upper edge in this image is the Nathair Facula, the aftermath of the largest volcanic explosion on Mercury. At its centre is a volcanic vent of around 40 km across that has been the site of at least three major eruptions. The explosive volcanic deposit is at least 300 km in diameter.
Nathair Facula is a major target for several BepiColombo instruments, which will measure the composition of the erupted material. This will teach us about what Mercury is made of, and how the planet formed.
Also visible is the relatively young Fonteyn crater, which formed a ‘mere’ 300 million years ago. Its youth is apparent from the brightness of the impact debris that radiates out from it. Older material on Mercury's surface has become much darker from weathering as it aged.
Rustaveli, seen roughly in the centre of Mercury in this image, is about 200 km in diameter. Within its rim is a ring of peaks, making it a so-called peak ring basin. These peaks barely poke above smooth material on Rustaveli’s floor, which suggests the crater has been flooded by lava.
Interestingly, NASA’s Messenger spacecraft detected a magnetic signal coming from Rustaveli. When molten rock such as lava or impact melt solidifies, magnetic carriers within it align with the direction of the planet's magnetic field. As the planetary magnetic field naturally changes over time, eventually the 'locked in' magnetic field in the planet's crust no longer agrees with the planetary magnetic field, something that can be detected from space. BepiColombo's two magnetometer instruments will investigate this further.
In the foreground of the image, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter’s medium gain antenna (top centre) and magnetometer boom (right) are visible.
[Technical details: This image of Mercury's surface was taken by M-CAM 2 onboard the Mercury Transfer Module (part of the BepiColombo spacecraft), using an exposure time of 4 millseconds. Taken from a distance of around 2103 km, the surface resolution in this photograph is around 2330 m/pixel. The image has been lightly processed; its brightness and contrast have been adjusted.]
[Image description: Planet Mercury in the background with its grey, cratered, pockmarked surface. In the foreground are some spacecraft parts.]
Credits: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Tags: BepiColombo Bepi MPO MTM Mercury Solar System JAXA Aerospace 宇宙航空研究開発機構 ISAS MMO 水星探査計画BepiColombo 水星磁気圏探査機MMO 水星探査 ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Cosmos Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology
© All Rights Reserved
This is one of a series of images taken by the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission on 8 January 2025 as the spacecraft sped by for its sixth and final gravity assist manoeuvre at the planet.
Monitoring camera 2 (M-CAM 2) took this photo at 07:17 CET, when the spacecraft was about 2103 km from the planet’s surface. The spacecraft’s closest approach of 295 km took place on the planet's night side at 06:59 CET.
The bright patch near the planet's upper edge in this image is the Nathair Facula, the aftermath of the largest volcanic explosion on Mercury. At its centre is a volcanic vent of around 40 km across that has been the site of at least three major eruptions. The explosive volcanic deposit is at least 300 km in diameter.
Nathair Facula is a major target for several BepiColombo instruments, which will measure the composition of the erupted material. This will teach us about what Mercury is made of, and how the planet formed.
Also visible is the relatively young Fonteyn crater, which formed a ‘mere’ 300 million years ago. Its youth is apparent from the brightness of the impact debris that radiates out from it. Older material on Mercury's surface has become much darker from weathering as it aged.
Rustaveli, seen roughly in the centre of Mercury in this image, is about 200 km in diameter. Within its rim is a ring of peaks, making it a so-called peak ring basin. These peaks barely poke above smooth material on Rustaveli’s floor, which suggests the crater has been flooded by lava.
Interestingly, NASA’s Messenger spacecraft detected a magnetic signal coming from Rustaveli. When molten rock such as lava or impact melt solidifies, magnetic carriers within it align with the direction of the planet's magnetic field. As the planetary magnetic field naturally changes over time, eventually the 'locked in' magnetic field in the planet's crust no longer agrees with the planetary magnetic field, something that can be detected from space. BepiColombo's two magnetometer instruments will investigate this further.
In the foreground of the image, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter’s medium gain antenna (top centre) and magnetometer boom (right) are visible.
[Technical details: This image of Mercury's surface was taken by M-CAM 2 onboard the Mercury Transfer Module (part of the BepiColombo spacecraft), using an exposure time of 4 millseconds. Taken from a distance of around 2103 km, the surface resolution in this photograph is around 2330 m/pixel. The image has been lightly processed; its brightness and contrast have been adjusted.]
[Image description: Planet Mercury in the background with its grey, cratered, pockmarked surface. In the foreground are some spacecraft parts.]
Credits: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Tags: BepiColombo Bepi MPO MTM Mercury Solar System JAXA Aerospace 宇宙航空研究開発機構 ISAS MMO 水星探査計画BepiColombo 水星磁気圏探査機MMO 水星探査 ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Cosmos Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology
© All Rights Reserved
This is one of a series of images taken by the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission on 8 January 2025 as the spacecraft sped by for its sixth and final gravity assist manoeuvre at the planet. After flying over the planet's north pole, the spacecraft had clear views of Mercury's sunlit northern hemisphere.
Monitoring camera 1 (M-CAM 1) took this photo at 07:12 CET, when the spacecraft was about 1427 km from the planet’s surface. The spacecraft’s closest approach of 295 km took place on the planet's night side at 06:59 CET.
The image shows that large regions of Mercury's heavily cratered surface are smoothed over by lava from volcanic eruptions.
This smoothing over is visible inside the 290 km-wide crater at the right of the image, called Mendelssohn. While its outer rim is still visible, it has been largely filled by the same smooth material that makes up the surrounding plains. Smaller, more recent impact craters dot the otherwise smooth crater.
The vast plains surrounding Mendelssohn, called Borealis Planitia, were formed by the widespread eruption of runny lava some 3.7 billion years ago. The volume of lava making up Borealis Planitia is similar in scale to mass extinction-level volcanic events recorded in Earth’s history, notably the mass extinction event at the end of the Permian period 252 million years ago. Borealis Planitia is bordered by older and hence more heavily cratered terrain.
An old M-CAM favourite, the 1500 km-diameter Caloris basin, appears in the lower left portion of the globe. This is Mercury's largest well-preserved impact structure, and one of the largest in the Solar System. The impact that created it left scars on Mercury's surface up to thousands of kilometres away.
Deep troughs point outwards from the basin's edge, possibly formed by high-speed debris from the Caloris impact scouring the surface. Some of them host relatively bright lava, which looks similar to both the lava on the floor of the Caloris basin and the lava of Borealis Planitia further to the north.
But which way did the lava flow: into the basin, or outwards? We don’t yet know, and this is one of Mercury’s many mysteries that BepiColombo hopes to solve. The foreground of the image shows BepiColombo's solar array (centre right), and a part of the Mercury Transfer Module (lower left).
[Technical details: This image of Mercury's surface was taken by M-CAM 1 onboard the Mercury Transfer Module (part of the BepiColombo spacecraft), using an exposure time of 4 milliseconss. Taken from a distance of around 1427 km, the surface resolution in this photograph is around 1500 m/pixel. The image has been lightly processed to largely remove instrumental effects due to camera readout without a shutter. The image's brightness and contrast have also been adjusted.]
[Image description: Planet Mercury in the background with its grey, cratered, pockmarked surface. In the foreground are some spacecraft parts.]
Credits: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Tags: BepiColombo Bepi MPO MTM Mercury Solar System JAXA Aerospace 宇宙航空研究開発機構 ISAS MMO 水星探査計画BepiColombo 水星磁気圏探査機MMO 水星探査 ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Cosmos Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology
© All Rights Reserved
This is one of a series of images taken by the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission on 8 January 2025 as the spacecraft sped by for its sixth and final gravity assist manoeuvre at the planet. After flying over the planet's north pole, the spacecraft had clear views of Mercury's sunlit northern hemisphere.
Monitoring camera 1 (M-CAM 1) took this photo at 07:12 CET, when the spacecraft was about 1427 km from the planet’s surface. The spacecraft’s closest approach of 295 km took place on the planet's night side at 06:59 CET.
The image shows that large regions of Mercury's heavily cratered surface are smoothed over by lava from volcanic eruptions.
This smoothing over is visible inside the 290 km-wide crater at the right of the image, called Mendelssohn. While its outer rim is still visible, it has been largely filled by the same smooth material that makes up the surrounding plains. Smaller, more recent impact craters dot the otherwise smooth crater.
The vast plains surrounding Mendelssohn, called Borealis Planitia, were formed by the widespread eruption of runny lava some 3.7 billion years ago. The volume of lava making up Borealis Planitia is similar in scale to mass extinction-level volcanic events recorded in Earth’s history, notably the mass extinction event at the end of the Permian period 252 million years ago. Borealis Planitia is bordered by older and hence more heavily cratered terrain.
An old M-CAM favourite, the 1500 km-diameter Caloris basin, appears in the lower left portion of the globe. This is Mercury's largest well-preserved impact structure, and one of the largest in the Solar System. The impact that created it left scars on Mercury's surface up to thousands of kilometres away.
Deep troughs point outwards from the basin's edge, possibly formed by high-speed debris from the Caloris impact scouring the surface. Some of them host relatively bright lava, which looks similar to both the lava on the floor of the Caloris basin and the lava of Borealis Planitia further to the north.
But which way did the lava flow: into the basin, or outwards? We don’t yet know, and this is one of Mercury’s many mysteries that BepiColombo hopes to solve. The foreground of the image shows BepiColombo's solar array (centre right), and a part of the Mercury Transfer Module (lower left).
[Technical details: This image of Mercury's surface was taken by M-CAM 1 onboard the Mercury Transfer Module (part of the BepiColombo spacecraft), using an exposure time of 4 milliseconss. Taken from a distance of around 1427 km, the surface resolution in this photograph is around 1500 m/pixel. The image has been lightly processed to largely remove instrumental effects due to camera readout without a shutter. The image's brightness and contrast have also been adjusted.]
[Image description: Planet Mercury in the background with its grey, cratered, pockmarked surface. In the foreground are some spacecraft parts.]
Credits: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Tags: BepiColombo Bepi MPO MTM Mercury Solar System JAXA Aerospace 宇宙航空研究開発機構 ISAS MMO 水星探査計画BepiColombo 水星磁気圏探査機MMO 水星探査 ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Cosmos Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology
© All Rights Reserved
This is one of a series of images taken by the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission on 8 January 2025 as the spacecraft sped by for its sixth and final gravity assist manoeuvre at the planet. Flying over Mercury's north pole gave the spacecraft's monitoring camera 1 (M-CAM 1) a unique opportunity to peer down into the shadowy polar craters.
M-CAM 1 took this long-exposure photograph of Mercury's north pole at 07:07 CET, when the spacecraft was about 787 km from the planet’s surface. The spacecraft’s closest approach of 295 km took place on the planet's night side at 06:59 CET.
In this view, Mercury’s terminator, the boundary between day and night, divides the planet in two. Along the terminator, just to the left of the solar array, the sunlit rims of craters Prokofiev, Kandinsky, Tolkien and Gordimer can be seen, including some of their central peaks.
Because Mercury’s spin axis is almost exactly perpendicular to the planet's movement around the Sun, the rims of these craters cast permanent shadows on their floors. This makes these unlit craters some of the coldest places in the Solar System, despite Mercury being the closest planet to the Sun!
Excitingly, there is already evidence that these dark craters contain frozen water. Whether there is really water on Mercury is one of the key mysteries that BepiColombo will investigate once it's in orbit around the planet.
The left of the image shows the vast volcanic plains known as Borealis Planitia. These are Mercury’s largest expanse of ‘smooth plains' and were formed by the widespread eruption of runny lava 3.7 billion years ago.
This lava flooded existing craters, as is clearly visible in the lower left Henri and Lismer craters. The ‘wrinkles’ seen in the centre-left were formed over billions of years following the solidification of the lava, probably in response to global contraction as Mercury’s interior cooled down.
The volume of lava making up Borealis Planitia is similar in scale to mass extinction-level volcanic events recorded in Earth’s history, notably the mass extinction event at the end of the Permian period 252 million years ago.
The foreground of the image shows BepiColombo's solar array (centre right), and a part of the Mercury Transfer Module (lower left).
[Technical details: This image of Mercury's surface was taken by M-CAM 1 on board the Mercury Transfer Module (part of the BepiColombo spacecraft), using an integration time of 40 milliseconds. Taken from around 787 km, the surface resolution in this photograph is around 730 m/pixel.]
[Image description: Planet Mercury in the background with its grey, cratered, pockmarked surface. In the foreground are some spacecraft parts.]
Credits: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Tags: BepiColombo Bepi MPO MTM Mercury Solar System JAXA Aerospace 宇宙航空研究開発機構 ISAS MMO 水星探査計画BepiColombo 水星磁気圏探査機MMO 水星探査 ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Cosmos Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology
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