The hope of human migration into space in the future? NASA analysis: Mercury and the moon hide more water ice.

In recent years, there are more and more sayings about human migration to outer space, because the current resources of the earth seem to be unable to support the survival of so many people. So many people think that some people move to other planets as a way out for the future of human civilization. But how to survive on other planets? This requires some resources necessary for human survival, such as water and ice. Therefore, finding water ice on other planets has long been one of the important tasks of astronomical observation. Recently, a study published by NASA pointed out that the moon, the satellite of the earth, and Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, may contain more water ice than previously thought.

Potential ice deposits exist in craters near the poles of the world. On the moon, researchers found that shallow craters are usually located near the south pole of the moon, where surface ice has been found before. The researchers suspect that the shallowness of the crater may be due to the thick ice layer buried in the crater.

Although Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, in the past, ice deposits similar to glaciers were found on Mercury through telescope observation and airplane survey. Now, scientists have extended this speculation to the moon, thinking that there is also the possibility of thick ice-rich deposits on the moon. If this speculation is confirmed, the potential ice bank on the moon may be large enough to maintain long-term lunar exploration, which is very meaningful for human beings to land on the moon in the future.

The poles of mercury and the moon are one of the coldest places in our solar system. Although mercury is closer to the sun in the distance from the moon, the polar sun will never be above the horizon because of its axis of rotation. Therefore, the sunken areas such as impact craters have never seen the sun. For decades, it has been thought that these so-called permanent shadow areas are so cold that the ice in them may survive for billions of years.

Previous observations of Mercury's poles revealed the characteristics of thick pure ice deposits, which are basically water ice and widely distributed in Mercury's Arctic and Antarctic regions. Compared with the discovery of the moon, the researchers found that the ice deposits of mercury seem to be relatively younger than those on the moon, which may mean that the ice at the poles of mercury has been updated in the past tens of millions of years.

Mercury north pole

In the study of the moon, researchers have confirmed that the environment of the moon's poles is very similar to that of Mercury, but compared with Mercury, only mottled shallow ice layers are found at the moon's poles. This amazing difference puzzles scientists. It also allows scientists to further study the mystery of the moon's polar ice-this study uses the measurement data of about 15000 small-scale craters with diameters ranging from 2.5 km to 15 km, located on Mercury and the moon. The researchers found that near the North Pole of Mercury and the South Pole of the Moon, the crater became shallower by 65,438+00%, but not at the North Pole of the Moon.

Lunar south pole

For these shallow craters, the researchers believe that the most likely explanation is the accumulation of thick ice layers that have not been detected before in these two areas. Researchers who support this conclusion find that the polar slopes of these craters are slightly shallower than the equatorial slopes, and this shallowness is more obvious in areas where the ice stability is improved due to Mercury's orbit around the sun.

However, compared with almost pure ice in Mercury crater, the ice deposits detected on the moon are probably not pure ice, but products mixed with weathered layers, which may be layered strata. The researchers' analysis of the age of these craters shows that they may have accumulated ice and later mixed with the overlying weathering layer on a long time scale. Scientists have found that these inferred buried ice deposits are related to the location of the detected surface ice. This discovery means that exposed ice deposits may be excavated or caused by deep molecular diffusion.