G. Mudalige, Jadetimes Staff
G. Mudalige is a Jadetimes news reporter covering Technology & Innovation
A British-built spacecraft, BepiColombo, has successfully captured striking new images of Mercury during its sixth and final flyby before entering the planet’s orbit in 2026. Developed by the UK-based company Astrium, now part of Airbus, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), BepiColombo is on a mission to explore the mysteries of Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun. Launched in 2018, the spacecraft has traveled through the solar system for over five years, utilizing flybys of Earth, Venus, and Mercury to gradually adjust its speed and trajectory to align with Mercury’s orbit.
On Wednesday at 06:59 CET, BepiColombo flew just 295 kilometers (183 miles) above Mercury’s north pole, providing breathtaking images of the planet’s surface. The monitoring cameras onboard the spacecraft captured close-up views of Mercury’s northern plains and craters, including the Nathair Facula region and the Fonteyn Crater. These images are invaluable as scientists seek to better understand the composition and geology of this little-explored planet. The pictures show Mercury’s rugged landscape, marked by deep craters and rocky terrain, illuminated by sunlight.
BepiColombo’s mission is more than just capturing stunning visuals; it aims to answer fundamental questions about Mercury’s formation and structure. One of the key scientific objectives is to determine what the planet is made of and whether water ice could exist in its deep craters, particularly in areas that are permanently shadowed from the Sun’s intense heat. Understanding Mercury’s composition will provide insights into the planet’s history and how it has survived the harsh conditions near the Sun for billions of years.
The journey to Mercury has been a challenging one. Unlike missions to outer planets, reaching Mercury requires slowing down the spacecraft to match the planet’s speed. BepiColombo needed nine flybys—one of Earth, two of Venus, and six of Mercury—to achieve this. These flybys helped the spacecraft adjust its speed and trajectory, allowing it to be captured by Mercury’s gravity. The final flyby marks a significant milestone in the mission, as BepiColombo’s two satellite modules will soon separate from the main spacecraft and enter Mercury’s orbit in late 2025.
The monitoring cameras that captured these remarkable images will no longer be able to take close-up photos, as they are attached to the part of the spacecraft that will no longer be used in the main mission. However, the two scientific satellites—one operated by ESA and the other by JAXA—will remain in orbit around Mercury to gather data for at least one Earth year, with a focus on studying the planet’s magnetic field, surface, and internal structure.
Frank Budnik, BepiColombo’s flight dynamics manager, expressed excitement about the mission’s progress. "BepiColombo's main mission phase may only start two years from now, but all six of its flybys of Mercury have given us invaluable new information about the little-explored planet," he said. Geraint Jones, project scientist at the ESA, echoed this sentiment, highlighting the importance of the data gathered during the flybys. "In the next few weeks, the BepiColombo team will work hard to unravel as many of Mercury's mysteries with the data from this flyby as we can," he added.
The data collected by BepiColombo will help scientists uncover the secrets of Mercury’s formation and evolution, which could, in turn, provide a deeper understanding of other rocky planets, including Earth. The mission is set to explore the planet’s surface features, magnetic field, exosphere, and interior structure, offering clues about the planet’s volcanic activity, tectonic history, and interactions with solar radiation.
As BepiColombo moves closer to its final mission phase, the scientific community eagerly anticipates the groundbreaking discoveries it is expected to deliver. The mission’s success highlights the UK’s significant contribution to space exploration and showcases the importance of international collaboration in advancing humanity’s understanding of the solar system.
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