NASA have just announced that they believe they have discovered ice in Mercury's polar craters.

[Craig]

Literally, just now!

/>http://www.nature.com/news/stores-of-ice-confirmed-on-sun-scorched-mercury-1.11922

Talk about a land of fire and ice. The surface of Mercury is hot enough in some places to melt lead, but it is a winter wonderland at its poles — with perhaps a trillion tonnes of water ice trapped inside craters — enough to fill 20 billion Olympic skating rinks.

The ice — whose long-suspected presence¹ has now been confirmed by NASA's orbiting MESSENGER probe — seems to be much purer than ice inside similar craters on Earth's Moon, suggesting that the closest planet to the Sun could be a better trap for icy materials delivered by comets and asteroids.

Three papers detailing the findings are published today in Science^{2, 3, 4}.

Live broadcast here: http://blogs.discovery.com/inscider/2012/11/nasa-mercury-announcement.html

[catman161]

Another interesting read, TFS Craig

[cosmic dave]

Wow !

[Daz Type-R]

"Cool"

[T A WOW]

Totes amaze!