Europe's BepiColombo mission will enter orbit of the solar system's first planet in about two years, but it's been whizzing past Mercury regularly as it lines up its approach. The ESA reports that ...

“We needed nine flybys (one at Earth, two at Venus, and six at Mercury) to slow down our spacecraft and bring it into a good position to enter the orbit of Mercury.” Sequence of 89 images ...

ESA's Solar Orbiter captured views of the planet Mercury passing in front of the Sun. Multiple instruments aboard the ...

Mercury has the shortest and fastest orbit around the Sun and experiences dramatic temperature changes as it rotates. It is a world of extremes. Explore facts about our solar system's fastest planet.

taking advantage of the planet’s gravity to adjust its course so it can enter orbit in 2026. On the flyby, the spacecraft passed within just 180 miles of Mercury’s surface, enabling it to ...

This means that, from our perspective on Earth, it appears as if Mercury is moving backward in its orbit around the sun. Mercury in retrograde is not a rare or sudden occurrence. It happens three ...

The four-planet lineup that began in January concludes by mid- to late February, as Saturn sinks increasingly lower in the sky each night after sunset, according to NASA. While Mercury will briefly ...

The result is that Mercury appears to reverse its motion across the sky, but in reality the planet is just lapping us because its orbit around the sun is so much closer-in and shorter. This ...

Dwarf planet Pluto, on the other hand, has a fairly squashed orbit. Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, has the most eccentric orbit, with the difference between the distance at perihelion and ...

But of these planets, which is nearest to the sun? Mercury is a strange little world. There are some craters on its surface that never see sunlight. It also has the most extreme temperatures of ...