The discovery of water content in the form of ice on Mercury proved that speculation more than 20 years was in fact true. Messenger spacecraft of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) suggests that the planet closest to the sun it has water.
In 1991, astronomers firing radar signals from Earth to Mercury and receive results that indicate the possibility of ice at both poles of the planet. This preconception measurements strengthened in 1999, using microwave radar signals from Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which also shows the white areas of suspected water in the form of ice.
"But the spacecraft needed to take a closer look," said Gregory Neumann, Messenger project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland, Friday, November 30, 2012.
Later NASA launches Messenger to Mercury orbit in March 2011. Since then telescoped poles of Mercury Messenger uses a laser altimeter and found some bright spots are a sign of ice. Messenger should be directed to the right places to look for areas of light and then measuring the temperature and composition.
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| Perspective view of Mercury’s north polar region with the radar-bright regions shown in yellow. (Picture from: http://www.rdmag.com/) |
Allegations of water on Mercury is also reinforced by the discovery of John Cavanaugh, a member of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter team, "he has seen the same strange pattern as found ice at the lunar poles in 2009," said Neumann.
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| Shown in red are areas of Mercury’s north polar region that are in shadow in all images acquired by MESSENGER to date. Image coverage, and mapping of shadows, is incomplete near the pole. The polar deposits imaged by Earth-based radar are in yellow (from Image 2.1), and the background image is the mosaic of MESSENGER images from Image 2.2. This comparison indicates that all of the polar deposits imaged by Earth-based radar are located in areas of persistent shadow as documented by MESSENGER images. Image released Nov. 28, 2012. (Picture from: http://www.space.com/) |
However, this finding also raises question marks. Why is there water on the planet where the temperature can reach 427 degrees Celsius? Though the water boils and evaporates at 100 degrees Celsius.
Neumann said the neutron spectrometer Messenger indeed capture the presence of hydrogen, which is a major component of water molecules, at the poles of Mercury. But it shows the temperature profile of dark matter and volatile mixed with ice. "We suspect that water ice Mercury coated heat resistant "blanket" thick as 10 centimeters," he said.
NASA scientists are now hunting down the organic material on the planet. The search process will take much longer. *** [SPACE | MAHARDIKA SATRIA HADI | KORAN TEMPO 4074]
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