Thick ice deposits in shallow simple craters on the Moon and Mercury

Abstract

Permanently shadowed regions near the poles of Mercury and the Moon may cold-trap water ice for geologic time periods. In past studies, thick ice deposits have been detected on Mercury, but not on the Moon, despite their similar thermal environments. Here we report evidence for thick ice deposits inside permanently shadowed simple craters on both Mercury and the Moon. We measure the depth/diameter ratio of approximately 2,000 simple craters near the north pole of Mercury using Mercury Laser Altimeter data. We find that these craters become distinctly shallower at higher latitudes, where ice is known to have accumulated on their floors. This shallowing corresponds to a maximum infill of around 50 m, consistent with previous estimates. A parallel investigation of approximately 12,000 lunar craters using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data reveals a similar morphological trend near the south pole of the Moon, which we conclude is also due to the presence of thick ice deposits. We find that previously detected surface ice deposits in the south polar region of the Moon are spatially correlated with shallow craters, indicating that the surface ice may be exhumed or linked to the subsurface via diffusion. The family of lunar craters that we identify are promising targets for future missions, and may also help resolve the apparent discrepancy between the abundance of frozen volatiles on Mercury and the Moon. Ice deposits up to around 50 m thick infill some craters near the Moon’s south pole and Mercury’s north pole, as inferred from the poleward shallowing of simple craters.