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Explore the most exciting new ideas and emerging concepts in science, health, technology and the environment with Â鶹´«Ã½â€™s exclusive in-depth articles, interviews and long reads.

Health

How worried should we be about a bird flu pandemic?

The first known death from a bird flu virus in the US has sparked fears about another pandemic, yet the overall risk to the general public still remains low

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Earth

La Niña is finally here but it won’t stay for long

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Health

Your ears and nose are made from tissue that looks like bubble wrap

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The skull of a Smilodon, which were made up of saber-toothed cats

Life

Why sabre-toothed animals evolved again and again

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Space

Keeping space tidy should become a global UN goal, say researchers

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Mathematics

Maths quirk explains why crosswords are so hard – until they aren’t

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GM7DEY Mother Disposing Of Baby Nappy In Bin

Health

Parents stop finding diapers disgusting once babies are eating solids

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n 2025 BepiColombo image1 Top three images from BepiColombo's sixth Mercury flyby 09/01/2025 619 views 4 likes ESA / Science & Exploration / Space Science / BepiColombo On 8 January 2025, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission flew past Mercury for the sixth time, successfully completing the final ?gravity assist manoeuvre? needed to steer it into orbit around the planet in late 2026. The spacecraft flew just a few hundred kilometres above the planet's north pole. Close-up images expose possibly icy craters whose floors are in permanent shadow, and the vast sunlit northern plains. At 06:59 CET, BepiColombo flew just 295 km above Mercury's surface on the planet's cold, dark night side. Around seven minutes later, it passed directly over the Mercury's north pole before getting clear views of the planet's sunlit north. European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Josef Aschbacher revealed the first image during his Annual Press Briefing on 9 January. As during BepiColombo's previous flybys, the spacecraft's monitoring cameras (M-CAMs) did not disappoint. This flyby also marks the last time that the mission's M-CAMs get up-close views of Mercury, as the spacecraft module they are attached to will separate from the mission's two orbiters ? ESA?s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA?s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter ? before they enter orbit around Mercury in late 2026. Celebrating the M-CAMs' final hurrah, let's explore the best three images from BepiColombo's sixth close encounter with the little planet, and what they reveal about mysterious Mercury.

Space

BepiColombo snaps Mercury’s dark craters and volcanic plains

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Technology

Quantum computers get automatic error correction for the first time

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Earth

California wildfires fuelled by months of unusual extreme weather

Fast-moving wildfires are burning long after the regular fire season is over due to an unlikely sequence of extreme weather events that may have been exacerbated by climate change

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Space

SpaceX: Starship to launch fake satellites on seventh test flight

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Space

See Saturn emerge from behind our moon in game of celestial peek-a-boo

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Life

Giant tracks show how dinosaurs roamed the UK millions of years ago

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Health

Will genome editing transform our children’s health? Some have doubts

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