Thanks GeronL!
 |
||
| · join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe · | ||
| Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar · | ||
on... Mercury?? Wow
Its damn cold in the shade.
As cripplecreek noted, it’s *really* cold at the poles because there is (virtually) no atmosphere. Without direct sunlight, any heat that reaches the dark craters is radiated away to the cold of empty space.
The water is thought to be formed by icy cometary impacts and/or solar wind protons reacting with oxygen on the surface. In either case, you end up with a rarified hot gas that will “bounce” around the planet until it “bounces” up and escapes gravity, or reaches the cold crater and freezes out.
A similar process occurs on the Moon for the same reason, and LRO has confirmed the presence of water in the poles in multiple ways.
MikeD, who built and aligned the UV spectrograph on LRO
|
||
| · join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe · | ||
| Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar · | ||
