MESSENGER Probe Finds Strong Evidence of Ice On Mercury

The Bad Astronomer writes "Just in time for the holiday season, the NASA space probe MESSENGER appears to have all but confirmed the existence of ice at Mercury's north pole. Ice has long been suspected to be hiding in permanently shadowed areas in deep craters at the planet's pole, but new data show several converging lines of evidence (thermal and visible light mapping, radar, neutron emission) that as much as a trillion tons of ice may be buried just centimeters deep under the surface. Scientists also see evidence of organic (carbon-based) molecules as well. That's not life, but it's more of an indication that volatile compounds can exist on the solar system's innermost planet." Further, astroengine writes "New results from the MESSENGER spacecraft not only confirm that the planet closest to the sun has ice inside shaded craters near the north pole, but that a thin layer of very dark organic material seems to be covering a good part of the frozen water. Both likely arrived via comets or asteroids millions — or hundreds of millions — of years ago."

Comments

Re:Mercury? MERCURY?!!!

[MyLongNickName]

You mean the promise that they would announce it at a conference in December (I believe the 8th or so)? You'll have to chill a few days as we are still in November.

Re:Number One Priority . . .

[compro01]

We've used the "hit it with a heavy object at high velocity" method to analyze a comet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact (spacecraft)