Sean C. Solomon

TL;DR: In this article, the shadowed regions of the north polar region from 65°N to 90°N were mapped by analyzing Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) images and by modeling illumination with Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) topographic data.

TL;DR: The Office of Naval Research, together with Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of Washington, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is pleased to announce the formation of two national Ocean Bottom Seismometer (OBS) facilities.

TL;DR: In this paper, the velocity change at the mid-mantle discontinuity beneath two hotspots is consistent with geodynamic models in which the mantle has distinct chemical reservoirs and the material beneath the compositional boundary in these areas is more silicon-rich than the overlying mantle, although the possibility of a yet-unknown phase transition particular to mantle plume material cannot be ruled out.

TL;DR: The shape of the planet Mercury is known to be oblate, with a polar radius 1.65 km less than the mean equatorial radius, and the difference between the semimajor and semiminor equatorial axes is 1.25 km with the long axis oriented 15ẹg west of Mercury's dynamically defined principal axis as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors find that radar-bright features near Mercury's north pole are associated with locations persistently shadowed in MESSENGENGER images, which is consistent with the deposits being composed of long-lived water ice, and future thermal modeling of small and low-latitude craters has the potential to further constrain the nature, source and timing of emplacement of the radarbright material.