....yet. News from NASA this week that they have discovered ice on the surface of mercury. Its hard to believe that the closest rock to the sun can harbour ice, when on earth we are beginning to worry that our icecaps are melting.
It appears that the cool shadow of the craters at the pole of the planet protects the ice from the sun, keeping it at a nice cool stable temperature.
I saw this meme a couple of days ago, and after chuckling to myself for a second, I did feel I should point out that we do know there is ice on mars, also located at the poles. We are even confident that it contains water ice. However the recent observations of mercury suggest that it's water ice, but there is still an uncertainty on this. On Mars we are looking for liquid water, or traces of its existence at least.
The surface of mercury, it has to be said, maybe isn't the most exciting in the solar system, but it does seem to still hold some secrets for us!
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