Enigmatic planet Mercury posed for some closeups when the BepiColombo mission flew by. Craters, bright regions and volcanic plains star in the best views from the flyby.

The BepiColombo mission successfully completed its sixth flyby of the innermost planet, moving closer to its final goal of entering its orbit.

BepiColombo made its sixth and final flyby of Mercury on Wed (Jan. 8) capturing images of the tiny planet hinting at the mysteries it will soon investigate.

A spacecraft has beamed back some of the best close-up photos yet of Mercury's north pole. The European and Japanese robotic explorer buzzed the planet's polar region Wednesday.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the joint Mercury mission in 2018. The BepiColombo spacecraft was expected to fly less than 200 miles above the surface of the Swift Planet.

The BepiColombo spacecraft flew less than 200 miles from Mercury's surface and photographed volcanic plains and icy craters.

A spacecraft making its final flyby of Mercury has captured incredible images. BepiColombo spacecraft made its sixth pass of the closest planet to the sun on Jan. 8. It flew just a few hundred kilometers above the planet's surface,

Within those shadows, it's thought, sits a layer of ice, preserving clues that could help us better understand Mercury's past and potentially its future. "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,