See New Detailed Photos of Mercury From a Spacecraft's Closest Flyby Yet

A joint European-Japanese spacecraft has made its closest flyby of Mercury yet, offering new snapshots of the rocky planet’s surface. The BepiColombo spacecraft, which launched in 2018, made its fourth pass by Mercury on September 4. At its nearest point, the vessel flew 103 miles above the planet’s surface, snapping highly detailed photos of its cratered crust along the way. BepiColombo is a collaboration between the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The spacecraft is equipped with three monitoring cameras, or M-CAMs, that captured black-and-white images of...