Fix It Future Blink Self Made Small Talk AI at Heart Watch of the Week Amplify The Best of 2024 AI at Play Watch History Office Ladies Podcast Don't Freak Out All Series Elisha Sauers writes about space for Mashable, taking deep dives into NASA's moon and Mars missions, chatting up astronauts and history-making discoverers, and jetting above the clouds . Through 17 years of reporting, she's covered a variety of topics, including health, business, and government, with a penchant for public records requests. She previously worked for in Norfolk, Virginia, and in Annapolis, Maryland. Her work has earned numerous state awards, including the Virginia Press Association's top honor, Best in Show, and national recognition for narrative storytelling. For each year she has covered space, Sauers has won National Headliner Awards, including first place for her Sex in Space series.

It seems like it should be pretty easy to get to Mercury. The little rocky planet is so much closer to Earth than distant destinations like Jupiter, where we've successfully sent multiple spacecraft. Plus, it doesn't have a crushing atmosphere like our nearest neighbor Venus. But, in fact, it's actually really difficult to reach the innermost planet of our solar system--which makes it that much more impressive that the ESA and JAXA's BepiColombo mission has almost reached Mercury, recently completing its final flyby of the planet before entering orbit next year. Reaching Mercury is such a challenge because "the gravitational pull of the Sun is very strong near Mercury, which makes it difficult for spacecraft to slow down enough to enter orbit around the planet," explains Lina Hadid, staff scientist at CNRS in France and principal investigator of one of BepiColombo's instruments.

The BepiColombo spacecraft has sent back some incredibly detailed images of Mercury's north pole. The snapshots were collected during its closest ever flyby of our solar system's smallest planet. You can check out the awe-inspiring images below. On January 8, the robotic explorer operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) came as close as 183 miles above Mercury. The newly released images show permanently dark craters spotting the surface of the planet closest to our Sun. Nearby volcanic plains and the largest impact cater on Mercury–over 930 miles wide–are also visible.