Spacecraft buzzes Mercury's north pole and beams back stunning photos

A spacecraft has beamed back some of the best close-up photos yet of Mercury's north pole. The European and Japanese robotic explorer buzzed the planet's polar region Wednesday. The European Space Agency released the snapshots Thursday, showing the permanently shadowed craters at the top of of our solar system's smallest, innermost planet. This was the sixth and final flyby of Mercury for the spacecraft, named BepiColombo, since its launch in 2018. It put the spacecraft on a course to enter orbit around Mercury late next year.