Forget Mars, NASA Probe Finds Ice and Organics on Mercury!

NASA has just announced that MESSENGER, the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, has confirmed the presence of ice covered by an unknown organic material inside craters near the planet's north pole - two major building blocks for life!

One current theory is that the ice and organic material could have been delivered to Mercury aboard an asteroid or comet perhaps hundreds of millions of years ago. Of course there’s a lot of painstaking research involved in the findings, as well as other details about this and other theories, so you can get the full story here.

But that's crazy, right? How could there be ice on the closest planet to the sun? It turns out the deep craters shade anything inside from the sun's rays, keeping the temperature cool enough to allow ice to form. It's even possible that liquid water exists on the planet somewhere under the ice!

NASA is still talking about the discovery in their live feed here (it repeats every so often):

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So is the planet Mercury home to alien life? It will take a lot more investigation to answer that question for sure. Even if it doesn't, it may still provide clues for how Earth's life forms got started. Perhaps our organic material came over through a visiting comet or asteroid too.

Watch Videos About Asteroids Narrated By Patrick Stewart!

Today's news has a lot of people wondering...Are We Alone? Lucky for us, SCIENCE is airing a 2 hour special about just that on Friday night at 8/7c!

Read up on the basics of what already knew about Mercury before today:



And check out videos on about our solar system.

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Photo Credit: NASA

Comments

[Christopher]

Thanks for this live stream it's very cool to watch and the commentator has a very relaxing voice!

I love space SO much but i think i'd be too afraid in case something went wrong and there was no way home. It's like having no escape.

Greetings from England.

[jim]

concerning the space school episode about the moon it was luna 9 that made the first soviet soft landing luna 10 was a flyby

[Rhek]

Life is all but impossible without an atmosphere. It is then we forget all we know and find life where there should be none.

[AJP]

Soooooooo ready :)

[CSpence]

Baba Booey

[Jake]

Just wondering where we could access these papers that they are talking about?

[umoksomeguyidk]

What if god just started to warm up Mercury or has mercury like stored and space is like his huge freezer and since he's going to end the world soon what if he's started to make a new earth by using Mercury and then Mercury will end up getting warmer and maybe alieans or something will land and then oxygen is made and trees starts growing and it's ice turns into oceans and rivers and then the aliens or what ever is on start evolving and creates new dinosoars and then some evolve into monkeys and the monkeys evolve and the human race is restored but the only diffrence will be is that it will be at a diffrent planet but if we die and earth gets destroyed will the humans learn how to talk like we did and name murcury earth?

[Lanie]

Jake: Go to pubmed to search for the papers.

[Leonard]

If it is water... where did it come from? Underground deposits? rain? (there is no atmosphere) The only answer is that it has been there for a long, long time and Mercury has never changed orbit as to the sun melt the ice and vaporize the water... given the high temperatures.

I dont think is ice...

[Charles]

@umoksomeguyidk

There is no god, The world is NOT going to end, grow up.

[Silvia]

My own personal Theory:

Like every other living thing, a Planet maybe has its own cycle too. And along with mass consumption, pollution...etc., we have possibly sped up the "cycle" process (cycle.. as in from the time it evolves/created to time of death/end. And we are witnessing the re-birth of another Planet. It's a cycle which means once this Planet dies or burns out it may take a few million years until it is reborn again with life....? like every other living thing...hence and so forth...no/yes/maybe?

Just my own personal humble thoughts :)

[Leonard]

QUESTION AND COMMENT FOR THE PANEL

f it is water... where did it come from? Underground deposits? rain? (there is no atmosphere) The only answer is that it has been there for a long, long time and Mercury has never changed orbit as to the sun melt the ice and vaporize the water... given the high temperatures.
I dont think is ice...

[Brandon Boutin]

Does this mean the possibility that there was once life on Mercury, or that it could at some point become inhabitable?

[Brandon Boutin]

Does this mean the possibility that there was once life on Mercury, or that it could at some point become inhabitable?

[Joseph]

If you are wondering where the water came from, perhaps the same way Earth got its water; from watery asteroids during the Late Heavy Bombardment billions of years ago.

Perhaps Mercury was hit by one too? At this point, all we can do is speculate until more evidence is uncovered.

[Jim Franklin]

To those who keep saying mercury has no atmosphere, I suggest you all go and do some research, because it does. As far back as Mariner 10 it was known to possess a meager one that was composed of Hydrogen, Helium and Oxygen, later this was augmented by the discovery of Sodium and Krypton with traces of water vapour. The atmosphere is tiny and not what we would consider one compared to earth, but it does exist...

[Silvia]

@Joseph
Great point.

[Jake]

@Charles

You're being an edgy atheist, and then telling someone else to grow up.

See the irony yet?

[Leonard]

QUESTION FOR THE PANEL
How can temperature be so drastic in a planet... so extremely cold and extremely hot?

[Michael]

do you have to have a lisp to join this club?

[wavycaver]

I'm blown away by the indicated ignorance of the people who have posted here...

[whollycrusader]

In the immortal words of Dr. Ian Malcolm, "Life...uh...finds a way."

[Julian R.]

Time test

[Charles]

@Jake

Ha, good point. Its just irritating to me when people try to relate it to EVERYTHING. Plus his steps in logic really don't make any sense.

[Dafydd]

@Leonard

http://www.universetoday.com/22088/atmosphere-of-mercury/