Investigating Mercury's South Polar Deposits: Arecibo Radar Observations and High-resolution Determination of Illumination Conditions.

ABSTRACT: There is strong evidence that Mercury's polar deposits are water ice hosted in permanently shadowed regions. In this study, we present new Arecibo radar observations of Mercury's south pole, which reveal numerous radar-bright deposits and substantially increase the radar imaging coverage. We also use images from MESSENGER's full mission to determine the illumination conditions of Mercury's south polar region at the same spatial resolution as the north polar region, enabling comparisons between the two poles. The area of radar-bright deposits in Mercury's south is roughly double that found in the north, consistent with the larger permanently shadowed area in the older, cratered terrain at the south relative to the younger smooth plains at the north. Radar-bright features are strongly associ

SUBMITTER: Chabot NL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5853133 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature