Water Ice At The Lunar Poles
Explanation:
After seven weeks
in lunar orbit,
instruments on board NASA's
Lunar Prospector spacecraft have
produced strong evidence for water ice on
the Moon.
While not in extensive sheets,
this ice could be in the form of crystals, mixed in low
concentrations with material in craters around
the frigid North and South lunar poles.
How much ice? So far, the estimates are
from 10 to 300 million metric tons (about 3 to 90 billion gallons).
The water ice is likely a result of
meteoritic and cometary bombardment.
Using very different instruments,
the Star-Wars-technology Clementine spacecraft also detected
telltale signs of ice
as it orbited the Moon in 1994.
Although
the lunar samples returned
by the Apollo missions suggested that the Moon was bone dry,
the Clementine result sparked the controversy and hope that
water ice might still be found - holding out the
tantalizing possibility that a substantial reservoir of lunar
water could be used to support
human exploration.
Above is
a mosaic of Clementine images of the
cratered terrain surrounding
the Moon's North pole.
Surprisingly,
Lunar Prospector's data indicates that
the North polar region contains about twice as much ice as the South.
As Lunar Prospector's mission continues, further data will
help determine more precisely the amount and distribution
of the water ice.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
