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NASA Announcement: Agency To Discuss New Mercury Data From Messenger Orbiter (LIVE VIDEO)

RECAP: NASA Finds Water Ice On Mercury
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Live broadcast by Ustream

NASA will hold a press conference on Thursday afternoon to reveal new information about Mercury's polar regions gathered from its Messenger spacecraft, the space agency said earlier this week.

According to NASA, officials from the agency's Planetary Science Division as well as scientists involved in the Messenger mission will be present at the event.

(SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE)

Live video of the announcement will be available here beginning at 2 p.m. EST.

NASA's Messenger, which is an acronym of Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging spacecraft, launched in 2004. It made three flybys of Mercury before arriving to orbit the planet in 2011.

Messenger's scientific goals, among others, include gathering data about the planet's geologic history, core and magnetic field.

Messenger is the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.

UPDATE: Thursday, 2:20 p.m. -- NASA announced Thursday afternoon that Messenger has found new evidence that ice made from water "and other frozen volatile materials" exist on Mercury.

For more details about water on Mercury and the Messenger mission, read this report from HuffPost's Andres Jauregui.

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Before You Go

Water On Mercury (PHOTOS)
North Polar Region(01 of09)
Open Image Modal
A portion of the Arecibo radar image of Mercury's north polar region. Near-surface water ice deposits are shown in bright colors. (credit:NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington )
Mercury's North Polar Region(02 of09)
Open Image Modal
Mercury’s north polar region if it was viewed by a neutron spectrometer with perfect focus. Measurements over radar-bright regions that consist of pure water ice would show fewer neutrons per time interval than elsewhere. (credit:NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington )
Water Ice On Mercury(03 of09)
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A diagram from NASA showing what the layer of water ice might look like on Mercury and how it was found. (credit:NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington )
Thermal Model For Water Ice(04 of09)
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The grey areas are regions that are too warm at all depths for stable water ice. The colored regions are sufficiently cold for subsurface ice to be stable, and the white regions are sufficiently cold exposed surface ice to be stable. (credit:NASA/UCLA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington )
Where Water Is Predicted(05 of09)
Open Image Modal
Map of MLA reflectivity showing isolated areas of brighter and darker reflectance in areas of permanently shadow. Many of the brighter areas detected by MLA (as indicated by the arrows) are in unusually cold regions where surface water ice is predicted. (credit:NASA/UCLA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington )
Neutron Spectrometer(06 of09)
Open Image Modal
High-speed MESSENGER Neutron Spectrometer measurements of the flux of high-speed neutrons versus latitude shown in red. High-speed neutrons suggest the water ice is buried. (credit:NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington )
Water-Rich Asteroid Impact(07 of09)
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How scientists believe water got to Mercury: A comet or water-rich asteroid that also contains organic compounds impacts Mercury. (credit:NASA)
What Happened Next(08 of09)
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Scientists believe that water and organic compounds were spread over a wide geographic region, and a small fraction of both compounds migrate to the poles where they can become cold-trapped as ices. (credit:NASA)
Maximum Surface Temperature(09 of09)
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Map of the maximum surface temperature reached over a two-year period over the north polar region of Mercury. This detailed thermal map of Mercury, and others show that Mercury displays the most extreme range of surface temperatures of any body in the solar system. (credit:NASA/UCLA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington )
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