Researchers discover water ice on Mercury
Even though the attention was recently directed frequently to Mars, yet the other planets of the solar system still hold some surprises ready. As NASA announced last week that the Messenger probe has discovered the planet Mercury large amount of water ice. This sounds like a paradox is, its surface by the sun but close partially heated to over 400 degrees Celsius.
The water ice was, however, not found on Mercury's equator, but at its north pole. There exist some deep craters, the result of an extremely small inclination of the planetary axis to the orbit never gotten sunlight and therefore have temperatures well below freezing.
Messenger has examined the crater using neutron spectroscopy and found that there under a ten to twenty centimeter layer is a hydrogen-rich layer, which has almost the same as hydrogen content of pure water. The ice is at least several tens of centimeters thick. The ice could have come from meteorites that are imprinted on the Mercury.
The discovery of ice confirms the assumption that ice under a layer of insulation possible on solar neighborhood is celestial bodies - and raises equal to the next question: What is the insulation layer? The north pole of Mercury consists of unusually dark material. Researchers now suspect that it is composed of organic compounds, which came by meteorite impacts on the Mercury. Possible that the material was roasted in addition by the hard radiation on the surface of Mercury.
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