This artist’s impression shows ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) that, together with a second spacecraft, the Japanese Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), makes the BepiColombo mission at Mercury.

The MPO will study the planet itself and, among several investigations, make complete maps of Mercury in several wavelengths. It will also map the planet's mineralogy and elemental composition and determine whether the planet has a molten core.