Probe captures stunning up-close views of Mercury's landscape
A series of images taken by two satellites flying past Mercury captured multiple "tectonic and volcanic curiosities" as well as an impact crater on the planet.
The satellites, jointly named the BepiColombo mission, are operated by the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
The photographs were taken during the mission's third gravity-assisted flyby at the planet, the ESA said in a news release. There will be six such flybys in total. The images were taken from 236 kilometers, or about 146 miles, above the planet's surface.
The black-and-white photos released by the agencies show multiple features, including the crater. The crater, newly named for Jamaican artist Edna Manley, is about 218 kilometers (135 miles) wide. Scientists found the crater to be of special interest because there appears to be "dark 'low reflectance material'" that researchers said in a news release might be remnants of the planet's early carbon-rich crust.
The basin of the crater has been flooded with smooth lava, which researchers said is "demonstrative of Mercury's prolonged history of volcanic activity."
BepiColombo will continue monitoring the crater from orbit, measuring the carbon in the area and the minerals that may be inside it.
Two images taken closer to the planet show "one of the most spectacular geological thrust systems" on Mercury. The area is a "lobate scarp," a tectonic feature that researchers believe is formed by the planet cooling and contracting. As a result, the area looks wrinkled. There are also features in the area that have been flooded with volcanic lava.
"This is an incredible region for studying Mercury's tectonic history," says Valentina Galluzzi of Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics in the news release announcing the photos. "The complex interplay between these escarpments shows us that as the planet cooled and contracted it caused the surface crust to slip and slide, creating a variety of curious features that we will follow up in more detail once in orbit."
The mission will complete another flyby of Mercury in September 2024, researchers said.