On Mercury there may be salt glaciers rich in volatile substances that create conditions favorable to life, similar to those present in some extreme environments on Earth populated by microorganisms. This is indicated by a study published in the Planetary Science Journal by researchers at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona.
“These glaciers on Mercury, distinct from those on Earth, originate from layers rich in volatiles” (i.e. substances that sublimate into gas) “buried deeply and exposed by asteroid impacts,” explains one of the authors of the study, Bryan Travis. “Our models make a strong case that salt flow likely produced these glaciers that have held volatiles for over a billion years.”
“Specific salt compounds on Earth create habitable niches even in some of the harshest environments, such as the arid Atacama Desert in Chile,” adds the study’s first author, Alexis Rodriguez. “This line of thinking leads us to reflect on the possibility that There are areas beneath Mercury’s surface that may be more hospitable than its surface. These areas could potentially act as depth-dependent habitable zones, analogous to the region around a star where the existence of liquid water on a planet could enable life as we know it. This groundbreaking discovery expands our understanding of the environmental parameters that could support life.”
The study on Mercury, which is the smallest and internal planet of the Solar System, integrates recent research in which the presence of nitrogen glaciers was demonstrated on Pluto, the planet most distant from the Sun: this suggests that icy environments rich in volatiles may be widespread across different planets, from the hottest, interior regions of the Solar System to its icy outer reaches.
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