Just in time for yesterday’s transit of innermost planet Mercury across the face of the sun, NASA released the first global elevation model of the sun scorched world, courtesy of the MESSENGER spacecraft. While Mercury is hardly at the top of anyone’s list of habitable planets, it is at least worth recalling that among its […]
At first glance, the solar system’s innermost planet generally conjures up images of a blistering hot, sun-baked ball of rock which would be one of the last places one would expect to find water ice. That was considered to be the case until 1991, when the Arecibo radar telescope in Puerto Rico, as well as NASA’s Goldstone/VLA detected reflections from Mercury which appeared to indicate the presence of water ice […]
Recent Comments