If There's Water on Mercury, Can Fish Be Far Behind?

Most media attention may be on Mars these days, but luckily for us (and the species as a whole) NASA is smarter than the average news network, and can actually look at more than one thing at a time.  As well as the "red planet" they've got a probe surveying the "insanely roasted by the sun planet" (aka Mercury) and have found the last thing they expected: water.

The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission detected this most precious of liquids in the Mercurian atmosphere, very surprising because to even call what the planet has an "atmosphere" is like calling the morning dew an ocean.  The thin layer of material that clings to the planet comes from high energy solar radiation directly vaporizing the surface rocks.  Not the sort of thing you'd expect to get wet.

This exosphere (as it's normally termed) is so thin that the MESSENGER can fly directly through it without burning up (though if it had been worried about burning it wouldn't have flown to Mercury in the first place).  On the way through its Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer detected an awful lot of rock elements, as you might expect, but also signals indicating water element groups.  To the general reactions of "What the Hell?"  "Check it AGAIN!" and eventually "Wow!" back at mission control.

One explanation for this momentous moisture is that charged hydrogen atoms from the solar wind (which constantly flays the surface) can combine with oxygen from the vaporized crust of the planet to form the essential H2O.  Sun radiation combined with blasted rocks on another planet - it makes Evian look like tap water in a council flat.

Water is normally exciting for astro-observers because it's a necessary condition for Earth-type life.  While a study of extremophiles shows it never pays to underestimate organic ingenuity, saying that water makes Mercurians possible is like throwing a carpet into an active volcano and calling it a sitting room.

This likely lack of life doesn't make the news any less awesome.  It's a pure and simple "Wow, we totally didn't expect that" moment, one of the best times in any field of research.  And this is just on MESSENGER's first flyby - it will doubtless reveal much more, but unless it spots Elvis on a subsequent run it's unlikely to find anything more exciting.

Posted by Luke McKinney. Image credit: Copyright Walter Meyer

Surprising news from the MESSENGER

Comments

[Barrie O'Leary]

How do I give you five stars? Where can I find the instructions? And, Oh, read Evian backwards. What's the betting that it comes from the urban waterworks?

[Jack Ragnarok]

Howdy Friend,
A few folk predicted water, or ice, on Mercury based on the electric nature of the Sun.

Mercury's spin axis angle has been reckoned at near zero in relation to its plane of orbit. I'm curious to know if 'Messenger' managed to recalibrate Mercury's spin axis angle. Do you know?

Friend, Jack

[dawn]

I guess that its cool that they found water, but technichally shouldn't every planet have water? As long as there are H and O molecules, there will be some form of water, whether it be water vapor or ice, or even flat out water. It's kinda like when they found the ice on mars. They always knew it was there, but now they have proof. Its not all that exciting to me.

[Frank J]

If there was water on Mercury, it would no longer be there because of the extreme heat, or am I missing something?

[Jared]

Well temps on the planet range from somewhere around -300(f) to about 800(f). So any water would either be obnoxiously frozen for 60 days (the time is takes for Mercury to rotate) or super heated and lost into space as a vapor. However the planet does have some perpetual cold spots deep in its crust. But as far as fish go? Yeah good luck with that!

[marsh]

Frank, Jared: did you read the article?

[Saudi]

How could water be on the spinning scorched atmosphereless planet?

[JL]

It boggles my mind how a site, based on the premise of higher-thought and analysis, could have such a dense commentariat.

I'm eyeing you Frank, Jared and Saudi. Really... is it that much of a hassle to actually read the article upon which you comment?

[Frank Glover]

"If there was water on Mercury, it would no longer be there because of the extreme heat, or am I missing something?"

They're talking *very* tenuous water vapor here.

Still, just as with Earth's Moon, there's reason (radar scans from Earth) to think ice exists at its equally sunless polar regions.

Which means that virtually the same technology for a Lunar polar base could be used on that part of Mercury.

[John S]

This would be the first time that there would be fish in the Mercury. Usually it's the other way around.

[Tush]

Really interesting but the planetary.org article that's linked to is almost a year old....

[EvilCosmicMonkeyFrom Knoxville]

Maybe extremeophiles could exist there, but they'd have to be pretty rugged. It would take lots of protection from the heat & radiation from Solar flares.

Mercury wouldn't be for sissy little girlie - man life forms. ;-}

[claudio]

Amazing .....Amazing....

Has that been re-tested ????

Regards

Claudio