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"We're seeing into these craters that don't see the Sun, at higher resolution than was ever possible before," Dr Nancy Chabot, the instrument scientist for Messenger's Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS), told a news conference.
Dr Chabot was speaking at the 46th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in The Woodlands, Texas.
Comets smashing into Mercury's surface probably brought both the ice and the dark, carbon-rich (organic) material that Messenger sees in these polar cold traps.
In the coldest of these craters, the researchers see mostly ice, which probably has the organic material within it as a small component.
But in those polar craters that get more sunlight, surface ice disappears, forming a concentrated layer of organic compounds that overlies and protects older ice deposits beneath.
These dark organic layers have sharp boundaries, which suggest the deposits are young. Otherwise, said Dr Chabot, the boundaries would have been disrupted by small meteorite impacts.
www.bbc.co.uk...
You mention "definitions" as plural but you don't mention the multiple definitions, that's one. Another is "of, relating to, or containing carbon compounds" which merely overlaps with living things which contain carbon compounds, but there are also carbon compounds that form in the absence of life.
originally posted by: iFloButta
And according to official definitions of organic..
of, relating to, or derived from living matter.