Chandrayaan-I data confirms presence of ice on Moon

Washington, August 21 

Scientists have found frozen water deposits in the darkest and coldest parts of the Moon’s polar regions using data from the Chandrayaan-I spacecraft, that was launched by India 10 years ago, NASA said today.

With enough ice sitting at the surface — within the top few millimetres — water would possibly be accessible as a resource for future expeditions to explore and even stay on the Moon, and potentially easier to access than the water detected beneath the Moon’s surface. The ice deposits are patchily distributed and could possibly be ancient, according to the study published in PNAS.

At the southern pole, most of the ice is concentrated at lunar craters, while the northern pole’s ice is more widely, but sparsely spread.

Scientists used data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument to identify three specific signatures that definitively prove there is water ice at the surface of the Moon.

It collected data that not only picked up the reflective properties we would expect from ice, but was able to directly measure the distinctive way its molecules absorb infrared light, so it can differentiate between liquid water or vapour and solid ice.

Learning more about this ice, how it got there, and how it interacts with the larger lunar environment will be a key mission focus for NASA and commercial partners, as humans endeavour to return to and explore the Moon. — PTI  

NASA’s M3 aboard spacecraft did it all

• The discovery was made using data from Nasa’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument, which was on board the Indian Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in 2008
• If there is enough ice on the moon’s surface, it would be possible for future expeditions to harvest this precious resource and possibly stay there for long periods