Title: Sources and evolution of polar ice on Mercury and the Moon

Abstract: The poles of Mercury and the Moon both show evidence for water ice, but the deposits on Mercury have a greater areal distribution and a more pure concentration. For example, ice deposits on Mercury are several meters thick, and are modeled to be ~95 wt. % pure water ice. In contrast, polar ice on the Moon appears to resemble a patchy frost that is compositionally heterogeneous. In this seminar, we will explore how these differences in purity and distribution of ice at Mercury and the Moon may be related to the ages, sources, and space-weathering histories of the ice.

Bio: Ariel Deutsch is a Ph.D. candidate at Brown University in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences and a NASA Graduate Fellow at Goddard Space Flight Center. Her research focuses on the water cycles on Mercury and the Moon. Ariel is also interested in how resources can be utilized in future robotic and human exploration of other planetary bodies.