News story Wrote:Nasa's experiment last month to find water on the Moon was a major success, US scientists have announced.

The space agency smashed a rocket and a probe into a large crater at the lunar south pole, hoping to kick up ice.

Scientists who have studied the data now say instruments trained on the impact plume saw copious quantities of water-ice and water vapour.

One researcher described this as the equivalent of "a dozen two-gallon buckets" of water.

"We didn't just find a little bit; we found a significant amount," said Anthony Colaprete, chief scientist for the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission.

No doubt

October's experiment involved driving a 2,200kg Centaur rocket stage into the 100km-wide Cabeus Crater, a permanently shadowed depression at the Moon's far south.

At the time, scientists were hoping for a big plume of debris some 10km high which could be seen by Earth telescopes.
LCROSS (Nasa)
The following probe was designed to analyse the debris plume

The actual debris cloud was much smaller, about 1.6km high, but sufficiently large to betray the evidence researchers were seeking.

The near-infrared spectrometer on the LCROSS probe that followed the rocket into the crater detected water-ice and water vapour. The ultraviolet-visible spectrometer provided additional confirmation by identifying the hydroxyl (OH) molecule, which arises when water is broken apart in sunlight.

"We were able to match the spectra from LCROSS data only when we inserted the spectra for water," Dr Colaprete said.

"No other reasonable combination of other compounds that we tried matched the observations. The possibility of contamination from the Centaur also was ruled out."

Useful resource

The total quantity of H2O spied by the instruments was more than 100kg. It came out of a 20m-30m wide hole dug up by the impacting Centaur rocket.

The LCROSS scientists stressed that the results presented on Friday were preliminary findings only, and further analysis could raise the final assessment of the amount of water in Cabeus.

Peter Schultz, from Brown University and a co-investigator on the LCROSS mission, said: "What's really exciting is we've only hit one spot. It's kind of like when you're drilling for oil. Once you find it in one place, there's a greater chance you'll find more nearby."

The regular surface of the Moon as seen from Earth is drier than any desert on our planet. But researchers have long speculated that some permanently shadowed places might harbour considerable stores of water, perhaps delivered by impacting comets billions of years ago.

If future investigations find the quantities to be particularly large, this water could become a useful resource for any astronauts who might base themselves at the lunar poles.

"It can be used for drinking water," said Mike Wargo, Nasa's chief lunar scientist for exploration systems.

"You can break it down and have breathable air for crews. But also, if you have significant quantities of this stuff, you have the constituents of one of the most potent rocket fuels - oxygen and hydrogen."

Centaur crater (Nasa)
The Centaur dug out a hole 20m-30m wide

In September, data from three spacecraft, including India's Chandrayaan probe, showed that very fine films of H2O coat the particles that make up lunar soil.

Scientists behind that finding speculated that this water might migrate to the even cooler poles, much as water vapour on Earth will condense on a cold surface.

This cold sink effect could be supplementing any water delivered by comets, they said.

If cometary material did reside in places like Cabeus Crater it would be fascinating to examine it, commented Greg Delory, from the University of California, Berkeley.

"The surfaces in these permanently shadowed areas, such as the one LCROSS impacted, are very cold," he told reporters.

"That means that they tend to trap and keep things that encounter them - compounds, atoms and so forth. And so they act as record keepers over periods as long as several billion years. They have a story to tell about the history of the Moon and the Solar System."

LCROSS was launched by Nasa on 18 June as part of a double mission which included the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

The latter, which continues to circle the Moon, measured a temperature of minus 230 Celsius at the base of Cabeus Crater.

Baklava Wrote:THAT'S SO KAWAII.

MOON WATER. n___n;

madanthony Wrote:I'll be more excited when I see an article about NASA getting enough money to even consider a moon colony project. I'd prefer we get into space before we use or destroy all of our resources and/or each other.

madanthony Wrote:I'll be more excited when I see an article about NASA getting enough money to even consider a moon colony project. I'd prefer we get into space before we use or destroy all of our resources and/or each other.

Zephyr Wrote:So you prefer that we go over there and destroy earth AND the moon? >_>

Tikey Wrote:Since the moon has no ecosystem, there's technically nothing to destroy.

Hazzy Wrote:I'm sure if enough pollutants were put into the moon's atmosphere, it could affect how it's seen on earth. Bright red moon year round, anyone?

Tikey Wrote:Since the moon has no ecosystem, there's technically nothing to destroy.

Takebacker Wrote:Aside from when we eventually tap the moon dry of any of the ice we just discovered, yeah.

Hazzy Wrote:I'm sure if enough pollutants were put into the moon's atmosphere, it could affect how it's seen on earth. Bright red moon year round, anyone?

IsaacGS Wrote:hey yeah might wanna check your facts before you open your mouth because THE MOON HAS NO ATMOSPHERE.

Chompy Wrote:Yeah- which brings me the the fact that colonizing it would be more of "living in biospheres" unless we find another way to make and keep an atmosphere on the moon.

Quote:Mars still stands a chance.

RideBMX Wrote:You wouldn't live outside of a biosphere due to the fine dust that wrecks everything it gets into.


Pump those green house gases and get some water. It's time to terraform Mars.

Chompy Wrote:The Mars thing is- it HAD volcanos which is a sign of a molten core- which is what creates our electro-magnetic atmosphere.
Thus we are protected from solar bad-guys by lava.