01/12/2012, 05:25 AM
Quote:NASA has confirmed a surprising, counterintuitive discovery. The burning hell known Mercury—the closest planet to the Sun—has water. Frozen water. Three new research papers, based on data obtained by the Messenger spacecraft, show undeniable evidence.- Source: [Gizmodo]
It's not just a little bit of water, but a huge amount: enough to cover Washington D.C. in ice. But there is more: there's organic material too! NASA researchers believe that Mercury received this material in the same way as Earth did, millions of years ago. And that material, they say, were the building blocks of life.
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But thanks to its angle in relation to our home star, there are areas that are always in shadow. That's where the ice sleeps, protected from the sun's radiation by this shadow and dark organic deposits that insulate the water from the sun.
Even more exciting: NASA scientists think that this "complex mix of organic materials" is similar to the material that eventually gave rise to life on Earth. And as in Earth's case, scientists speculate that this material was probably brought to Mercury by comets colliding with the planet's surface.
So it looks like Aliens From Mercury, as opposed to Mars.