Discovered Water ice on Mercury

NASA, Researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles and elsewhere have discovered evidence of presence of water-ice on the smallest and innermost planet the mercury. It is the surprising discovery that presence of both ice and organic material such as carbon may have been deposited on the surface of Mercury by impacts from comets or asteroids, scientists suggested.

"We thought the most exciting finding could be that this really as water ice", says Maria Zuber, the E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics in MIT's Department of Earth.

It became more thrilling when they identified the darker, insulating material that may indicate complex organics.

Mapping the surface of the planet is a challenging task, as the craft must weather the sun's intense radiation, which can "play havoc with electronics", Zuber says. Of course it is tedious work to move from pole to pole in an elliptical orbit for making an extremely tricky mapping mission complete, both dynamically and thermally. In spite of these challenges, on laser altimeter has amassed more than 10 laser pulses that have been used to map topography and measure the near infrared reflectance of the surface.

As latest analysis data was puzzling at first but later scientists believe they have found definitive evidence for water-ice on mercury. They found that the probe’s reflectance measurements matched up well with previously mapped radar bright regions in high northern latitudes of mercury, taken via laser altimetry.

The observations "threw us off track for a long time", Zuber says, until David Paige of UCLA, another team member, developed a thermal model of the planet, also added.

NASA, Researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles and elsewhere have discovered evidence of presence of water-ice on the smallest and innermost planet the mercury. It is the surprising discovery that presence of both ice and organic material such as carbon may have been deposited on the surface of Mercury by impacts from comets or asteroids, scientists suggested.

"We thought the most exciting finding could be that this really as water ice", says Maria Zuber, the E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics in MIT's Department of Earth.

It became more thrilling when they identified the darker, insulating material that may indicate complex organics.

Mapping the surface of the planet is a challenging task, as the craft must weather the sun's intense radiation, which can "play havoc with electronics", Zuber says. Of course it is tedious work to move from pole to pole in an elliptical orbit for making an extremely tricky mapping mission complete, both dynamically and thermally. In spite of these challenges, on laser altimeter has amassed more than 10 laser pulses that have been used to map topography and measure the near infrared reflectance of the surface.

As latest analysis data was puzzling at first but later scientists believe they have found definitive evidence for water-ice on mercury. They found that the probe’s reflectance measurements matched up well with previously mapped radar bright regions in high northern latitudes of mercury, taken via laser altimetry.

The observations "threw us off track for a long time", Zuber says, until David Paige of UCLA, another team member, developed a thermal model of the planet, also added.