That “zone of life” resides in craters near Mercury’s north pole, according to a study just published in the scientific journal The Planetary Science Journal.
The work was led by planetary scientist Alexis Rodriguez from the non-profit Planetary Science Organization in Arizona – USA, analyzing data from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft.
Terrain map of Mercury in an area believed to have underground “glaciers” containing life – Photo: NASA
The MESSENGER spacecraft was an orbiter that operated from 2004 to 2015 around Mercury. Although the mission has ended, its more than a decade of data set is still being “taken care of” by scientists around the world.
In particular, the “life zone” has been revealed through data about the two craters Raditladi and Eminescu.
Located near Mercury’s north pole, they contain streams of salt that trap volatile compounds deep below the planet’s surface. They are water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen.
Newer asteroid impacts have unintentionally exposed material trapped below the surface.
They are a surprising type of glacier, because it was previously thought that Mercury passed so close to the Sun that this type of structure could not exist.
But because they exist below the surface, these salt flows have preserved volatile substances for more than 1 billion years, according to new estimates.
According to Live Science, although Mercury’s salty deposits do not resemble typical icebergs or Arctic glaciers, similar salty environments exist on Earth.
Some extreme microorganisms have been found in such and even deadlier places as the waterless areas of Chile’s Atacama “death desert”, in boiling volcanic water, dozens of depths. meters below the dark ice bed…
Therefore, these structures are fully capable of containing extremophiles of the same type.
These underground volatile compounds may have originated from the collapse of the primordial atmosphere the planet once had before turning into the dead sphere it is today.
Additionally, there may have been a contribution from dense, highly saline steam that leaked from within the young Mercury’s volcanoes, which then evaporated, leaving the salt behind.
According to the authors, further studies are needed to truly unravel what lies beneath Mercury’s surface, something that later, more advanced MESSENGER missions promise to help expose.