
ALT Illustration showing cartoon characters Bepi and Mio waving in the centre. Bepi represents ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter and Mio is JAXA's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter. Together they are part of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission. On the right side of the image, the ESA logo is placed in the upper corner and part of planet Mercury in the lower corner. On the left side of the characters and underneath them, a text reads ‘Welcome BepiColombo to Mercury! Get ready to celebrate BepiColombo’s arrival at Mercury. Craft a welcoming message as a drawing, song, poem or any other art form. The prize is a trip to ESA’s BepiColombo event in Germany. Enter at esa.int/WelcomeToMercury by 25 October 2026. Hashtag WelcomeToMercury.

ALT A nebula made of clouds of gas and dust with stars forming within. In the centre and out to the left it is filled with thin, wispy blue gas that forms delicate layers. Around this are thicker orange clouds with dark ridges. Thin red filaments of gas cross the centre of the nebula. Glowing bubbles in the gas contain dense, very bright clusters of stars. In the edges, distant stars are visible as bright points on a dark background.

ALT A rectangular image of the orange surface of Mars. The centre-right is dominated by a large mound called Amazonis Mensa. Diagonal lines created by wind erosion are visible on either side of it. The left half of the image is a smooth surface with some impact craters, a wide valley, and a small snaking water-carved channel. These have been partially filled in by smooth material: ancient lava flows.

ALT Infographic explaining the MMX mission (part 1) in the style of a comic strip. At the top we see several logos: ESA, JAXA, NASA, DLR and CNES. Below there are three panels showing a timeline of the mission: October 2026 launch, August 2027 arrival at Mars, September 2027 arrival at Phobos. Two other panels show the mission observing Phobos from orbit and scouting for a landing site for the rover and a sample retrieval sites, and the release of the Idefix rover.

ALT Infographic explaining the MMX mission (part 2) in the style of a comic strip. Several panels show the mission collecting samples from Phobos, the return module separating from the exploration module, dropping a capsule over Australia and a scientist holding the samples. A last panel lists the scientific questions scientists hope to answer using the samples: 'Where did Mars's moons come from?', 'What can they tell us about habitability in the Solar System?', and 'How has Mars and its environment changed over time?'.




