Has polar ice been discovered on Mercury?

[vertigonight]

help again. It dosn't seem to clear to me.

Thankx

[Phi for All]

It's only a possibility. Areas of high radar reflectivity near the poles could possibly mean there is ice.

 

Related NASA article .

[Newtonian]

In short NO.However ongoing observations of mercury have yielded high radar reflectivity near the south/north poles.Thus indicating a possibilty of ice.One would think that mercury is too hot(500-700k)but it rotates very very slowly so who can say it isnt possible .

Ive never really considered the data(lack of interest really) i will try to find you something Vertgonight.

[Ophiolite]

If it does exist it has nothing to do with the slow rotation of the planet, but to the fact that in deep craters in the polar regions the sun never shines. The same mechanism (or more correctly absence of a mechanism) is repsonsible for the possible polar ice trapped at the poles of the moon. Note, however, that the attempts to detect this by crashing a probe into a polar crater on the moon and looking for the spectrocsopic signal of water tuned up negative. This must reduce our assessment of the likeliehood of similar ice existing on Mercury.

[us.2u]

This link hopefully might be of some interest to you....us.2u

 

http://www.magicdragon.com/ComputerFutures/SpacePublications/Mercury_Ice.html