New images of the planet Mercury taken by a robotic spacecraft have just been released — and they show the scorched world in fascinating up-close detail.

Barely larger than our own Moon, Mercury orbits precariously close to the Sun at an average distance of roughly 58 million kilometres.

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 newly released images show permanently dark craters spotting the surface of the planet closest to our Sun. Nearby volcanic plains and the largest impact cater on Mercury –over 930 miles wide–are also visible.

This is the third time a spacecraft has visited Mercury in the history of space exploration. BepiColombo’s three monitoring cameras snapped detailed black-and-white photographs as it drifted just 295km above the innermost planet.