Mercury poles give up hints of water ice

from BBC

22 March 2012 Last updated at 01:09 ET

By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website, The Woodlands, Texas

A Nasa spacecraft has found further tantalising evidence for the existence of water ice at Mercury’s poles.

Though surface temperatures can soar above 400C, some craters at Mercury’s poles are permanently in shadow, turning them into so-called cold traps.

Previous work has revealed patches near Mercury’s poles that strongly reflect radar – a characteristic of ice.

Now, the Messenger probe has shown that these “radar-bright” patches line up precisely with the shadowed craters.

Messenger is only the second spacecraft – after Mariner 10 in the 1970s – to have visited the innermost planet. Until Messenger arrived, large swathes of Mercury’s surface had never been mapped. . . . Read complete report

2 comments

  1. bdw says:

    The “electric universe” folks (who say that electricity and magnetism are powerful astronomical forces that must be taken into acount,not just gravity) at http://www.thunderbolts.info (they now have a huge number of articles) have an explanation for this: it more than likely is not water. they don’t have “proof” that NASA is wrong, but the point is that NASA is NOT “directly” measuring ACTUAL water: they are just measuring the hyroxyl ion (a water molecule missing one hyrogen atom). The EU folks have a very, very plausible explanation for those hyroxyl ions.

    • dgcrenshaw says:

      Thanks for the information. I love it when someone posts more information about a subject. That provides new fuel to the fire in search for the truth. thanks again! btw

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