Microsymposium 57:
Polar Volatiles on the Moon and Mercury:  Nature, Evolution and Future Exploration
The Woodlands Waterway Marriott, Montgomery Ballroom, The Woodlands, Texas,
March 19-20, 2016.

The Microsymposium 57 program is now online at:

http://www.planetary.brown.edu/html_pages/micro57.htm

The discovery of polar volatile materials on the Moon and Mercury has revolutionized our thinking about the origin, evolution and exploration of these significant scientific legacies and potential future resources. What is the nature and distribution of these materials?  How did they form? What is their age, how are they maintained, what is their abundance and what records do they hold of the geological, geochemical and orbital history of the Moon and Mercury? What can they tell us about the degassing history of the Moon and Mercury and the flux of comets in the Solar System? What can we learn from the comparison of polar volatile materials on Mercury and the Moon?

In this Microsymposium, we will explore our current knowledge and seek to identify the key questions, goals and objectives to underpin and motivate future exploration. We will review current exploration plans, including the U.S. Resource Prospector and Cubesats, Russian Luna and ESA BepiColombo missions.