The European-Japanese BepiColombo spacecraft has sent back its first images of Mercury while on a mission to deliver two probes into orbit in 2025. The images were obtained almost three years after the unmanned mission vessel was launched aboard an Ariane 5 Rocket. 

After diving past Mercury at altitudes of under 200km (125 miles), the BepiColombo spacecraft took a low-resolution black-and-white photo with one of its monitoring cameras. The image shows the northern hemisphere and Mercury’s characteristic pock-marked features, among them the 166km-wide Lermontov crater,  European Space Agency said.

The BepiColombo mission will study all aspects of Mercury – from its core to surface processes, magnetic field and exosphere. The motive behind the study is to understand better the origin and evolution of a planet close to its parent star.

Hello Mercury!

One of our first views of #Mercury, taken ~10mins after close approach. More details and images to follow later today! https://t.co/6CH9vE8Z0f#MercuryFlyby #ExploreFarther pic.twitter.com/hguRQbOGi5

— BepiColombo (@BepiColombo) October 2, 2021

Mercury is the only rocky planet orbiting the Sun besides Earth to have a magnetic field. Magnetic fields are generated by a liquid core. The joint mission by the European agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency was launched in 2018. The mission is named after Italian scientist Giuseppe ‘Bepi’ Colombo.

Mercury is a planet of extremes, vacillating between hot days of about 430 degrees Celsius (more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit) to super-frosty nights of minus 180C (minus 290F). Those days and nights last nearly three Earth months each. Earlier missions have detected evidence of ice in the deepest recesses of the planet’s polar craters.

(With Agency Inputs)