A photo open source American National Office for space exploration and aeronautics published a picture of the ice cap of Mercury.
The resulting image of the planet closest to the Sun is the clearest of all Mercury shots ever taken by humanity. Photo was taken by a space probe “Messenger” who immediately sent him to Earth. There are specialists NASA performed a thorough image analysis and unanimously recognized its unique.
American scientists managed to examine the surface of the planet layers of ice. The ice cap is reportedly located with that sides of the celestial body where sunlight never penetrated. Mercury is believed to have been plummeted in the past. asteroids and comets, from which we can conclude that these collisions failed to damage the ice covering part the planet.
Among other things, NASA experts clearly saw on the obtained images are traces of the weathering of the surface of Mercury. About this, according to representatives of the department, eloquently say visible short ridges. “Messenger” also reviewed in several craters of the planet are bright areas that scientists took for huge funnels of a bizarre form. True, the reasons for their occurrence you can only guess.
It is reported that the probe has been at fifteen for four years kilometers from the surface of Mercury. From this height they were made pictures.
April 30 at 22 hours 46 minutes Moscow time The Messenger crashed on Mercury.
NASA Mercury
