Spacecraft Buzzes Mercury's North Pole and Beams Back Stunning Photos

SysEngineer shares a report from the Associated Press: A spacecraft has beamed back some of the best close-up photos yet of Mercury's north pole. The European and Japanese robotic explorer 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 stunning snapshots Thursday, showing the permanently shadowed craters at the top of of our solar system's smallest, innermost planet. Cameras also captured views of neighboring volcanic plains and Mercury's largest impact crater, which spans more than 930 miles (1,500 kilometers).

what's even more impressive is the starship

[nothinginparticular]

enterprise in the foreground

Re:

[Mr. Dollar Ton]

What's even more impressive is the realization that the starship enterprise is only a small piece of this spacecraft.

Safer than Mars

[dhaen]

Since Mercury has a magnetic field, it's a safer bet than Mars to inhabit. There are regions at the poles that are in shadow and probably have water ice. These may be close enough to the sun side to tap its solar energy.

Re:

[Hank21]

Your comment would have been perfect had you not decided to include the trigger word "DEI" for no apparent reason. It detracts from your otherwise intelligent observational feedback. Indeed, lossy formats are not the ideal mechanism to deliver high resolution images.

BepiColombo

[necro81]

Since neither the submitter nor the Slashdot editors could be bothered to mention it in the title or summary: these are coming from spacecraft BepiColombo [wikipedia.org], which has been making its way towards orbiting Mercury since 2018. These images come from the sixth and final Mercury flyby - the ninth gravity assist maneuver . They'll enter orbit for the main science mission in November 2026.

Re:

[Ogive17]

Sometimes intrigue and mystery must remain so that we click on TFA.