Sentences with phrase «craters near the poles»

Water on the moon, if it exists at all, is probably confined to frozen deposits in a few shadowed craters near its poles.

The floors of some deep craters near the poles are never exposed to direct sunlight, and temperatures there remain far lower than the global average.

Not exact matches

Since the 1960's scientists thought that only in permanently shadowed areas in craters near the lunar poles was it cold enough to accumulate this volatile material, but recent observations by a number of spacecraft, including LRO, suggest that hydrogen on the moon is more widespread.

In craters near the south pole of the moon, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter found some bright areas and some very cold areas.

Equally enticing, some permanently shadowed craters near the lunar south pole seem to contain ice, which could provide water and air for the base.

LRO's early results have already caused a stir: The Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment sent back the first global temperature maps of the moon, revealing ultracold pockets in permanently shadowed portions of craters near the south pole.

Now, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, which has orbited Mercury since March, has confirmed that these radar - bright patches neatly coincide with deep crater floors near the poles that never receive any sunlight at all.

For example, he pointed to sun - shy craters at the lunar poles, where near - constant darkness has trapped and preserved water ice ripe for conversion into oxygen, water and rocket propellant.

The ice they carried would have vaporized from the impact, settling eventually in permanently shadowed craters near the north and south lunar poles, where the extreme cold (below — 400 degrees Fahrenheit, according to recent observations) would have preserved it almost indefinitely.

The idea that Mercury might have frozen water emerged in the 1990s, when Earth - based radar telescopes detected highly reflective regions inside several craters near Mercury's poles.

The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, adds three new members to the list of craters near Mercury's north pole that appear to harbor large surface ice deposits.

However, layers of water ice, up to a few hundred meters thick, are permanently shielded from sunlight in craters (shown above in black) near Mercury's poles.10 How strange.

Comparing these two images, it can be seen that the terrain near the south pole is more heavily cratered while some of the region near the north pole shows less cratered, smooth plains material, consistent with the general observations of the poles made by Mariner 10.