Mercury has water ice on it, according to NASA. That news, folks, is a really big deal. It means that Earth’s not the only planet in our Solar System to have life-sustaining water to any degree. Moreover, it may mean that somewhere on that planet either is, or was, life of some kind. But this is what the NASA website reads:
New observations by the MESSENGER spacecraft provide compelling support for the long-held hypothesis that Mercury harbors abundant water ice and other frozen volatile materials in its permanently shadowed polar craters.
Data indicate the ice is buried beneath an unusually dark material across most of the deposits, areas where temperatures are a bit too warm for ice to be stable at the surface itself.
We’ve been told that Mercury’s too close to The Sun to have ice deposits on it, so this is a major, science-changing, discovery. NASA explains that because of Mercury’s orientation to The Sun, there are some parts of the planet that never get sunlight.
Stay tuned for more on this.