Nature:
New evidence of water on Mercury has surfaced, according to
three reports published in
Science.
One
team of researchers, using IR laser pulses, has identified
bright regions that they believe indicate water ice, inside
nine craters near the planet's north pole; a
second
team, using thermal modeling based on data collected by the
Messenger spacecraft, has located ultracold spots that
line up perfectly with those bright regions; and a
third
team, also using
Messenger data, has spotted hydrogen, another
indicator of water ice, in the same areas. The researchers
suggest that any water on Mercury probably came from comets or
asteroids that struck its surface. The reason the water ice
ended up in frigid craters at the pole could be that, over
time, it migrated there from the blistering hot surface through
a process of vaporization and precipitation.
