Mercury Has ICE — Right Next to the Sun

On the planet closest to the Sun, scientists found ice.

Mercury's daytime surface roasts at over 400°C — hot enough to melt lead. Yet hidden at its poles is something that shouldn't be able to exist there: frozen water, possibly billions of tons of it.

Mercury barely tilts on its axis — so at its poles, the floors of certain deep craters never see sunlight, not once in the planet's entire history. Inside those permanent shadows, temperatures stay far below minus 170°C. They become cold traps, and any water delivered by comets or asteroids freezes solid and stays frozen. In 2012, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft confirmed it: sheets of water ice, locked in the dark on the Sun's nearest world.

On a world where the day side is hot enough to melt lead, ice has survived in the polar dark — likely untouched for billions of years, on the very same planet.

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