The BepiColombo spacecraft may have only made rapid flybys of Mercury, but it is already helping to unravel mysteries surrounding the closest planet to the sun.
In 2026, a European Space Agency (ESA)/Japan Aerospace Agency (JAXA) joint mission will fall into orbit around Mercury, the solar system's smallest planet. However, to do that, the spacecraft first needs to make several flybys of Mercury, Venus and Earth. Fortunately, these flybys are proving invaluable to science.
