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Water in the Solar System

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/ice/ice_moon.html

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-262

http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1939473,00.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/29/water-on-mercury-nasa-announces-ice-poles_n_2212433.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/water-on-mercury-bodes-well-for-alien-life-search/

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For thousands of years people everywhere around the world have wondered if there is water on other planets. Recent NASA explorations have confirmed that there are indeed ice glaciers on the Moon & Mercury and possibly other planets as well. Mercury has enough ice on it to cover Washington D.C. The Moon has gallons of water beneath its surface and in the rocks and minerals. Even though humans wont be living there anytime soon at least now we have an idea of how to get water in these places.

“Not only does water exist on the moon, but it has been uncovered by the bucketful — about 24 gallons' worth. It was the intentional crash of the mission — in two separate stages — on Oct. 9 that made the discovery possible. The first piece of LCROSS slammed into the floor of a crater called Cabeus, some 60 miles from the moon's south pole, excavating a hole more than 60 ft. across and sending up a plume of pulverized material about 6 miles wide.”

Many people think that mercury is too hot for they’re to be any ice on it. This is not true; mercury doesn’t spin all the way around. Therefore the top and bottom of mercury are much colder then the sides. “The tilt of Mercury’s rotational axis is almost zero -- less than one degree -- so there are pockets at the planet’s poles that never see sunlight.” So even though mercury is the closest planet to the sun, the sun doesn’t make the whole planet hot. Since the suns rays only are hitting half of mercury the rest of it is freezing.

“Mercury likely harbors between 100 billion and 1 trillion metric tons of water ice in permanently shadowed areas near its poles, scientists analyzing data from NASA's Messenger spacecraft announced Thursday. In the coldest parts of Mercury — permanently shadowed regions where temperatures drop to perhaps minus 370 degrees Fahrenheit — this ice can lie bare and exposed. But Messenger's data also show that much more frozen water is found in slightly warmer areas, buried beneath a strange dark material that acts as an insulator.”

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The moon on the other hand spins all the way around which makes it harder for it to form ice bodies, along with the solar wind. So instead of having icy lakes or craters filled with ice, the moon harbors it all of the water underneath its surface. “Compared to its surroundings, we found that the central portion of this crater contains a significant amount of hydroxyl - a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom -- which is evidence that the rocks in this crater contain water that originated beneath the lunar surface," Klima said

There is organic material on mercury that they believe is what also made our planet earth. Mercury has no atmosphere, this is another reason it has large icy bodies on it. Mercury temperatures range from