nasa’s mariner 10 was the first probe to ever visit mercury, making 3 flybys of mercury in 1974-75. the next one was nasa’s “messenger”, which orbited mercury from 2011-15, gathering much more detailed data of the planet. the third mission, europe & japan’s “bepicolombo” is on its way to mercury right now, and will make its first flyby this year on october 2, and then enter mercury’s orbit in 2025. get hyped people!

unfortunately we’ve never soft-landed on the planet and there currently aren’t any plans to. we have crashed into it though, which is something i guess. (rip messenger)