There are times when artificial environments in labs can become, well, hellish. This ominous-looking black hole in the ground leads to the Large Space Simulator, a special facility in the Netherlands built by the European Space Agency. It can simulate the punishing conditions a spacecraft would encounter near Mercury, a planet so close to the Sun that it takes only 88 days to complete an orbit. This image shows a part of the ESA's BepiColombo spacecraft after it has been subjected to temperatures higher than 660 degrees Fahrenheit, which it will face while spying on the solar system's innermost planet.