Water Discovered on the Moon
Explanation:
Water has been discovered on the surface of the Moon.
No lakes have been found, but rather NASA's
Moon Mineralogy Mapper aboard India's new
Chandrayaan-1
lunar orbiter radios back that parts of the Moon's surface absorb a very specific
color of light identified previously only with water.
Currently, scientists are trying to fit this with other facts about the
Moon to figure out how much water is there, and even
what form this water takes.
Unfortunately, even the
dampest scenarios leave our moon dryer than the
driest of Earth's deserts.
A fascinating clue being debated is whether the
water signal rises and falls
during a single lunar day.
If true, the
signal
might be explainable by hydrogen flowing
out from the Sun and interacting with
oxygen in the lunar soil.
This could leave an extremely thin
monolayer
of water, perhaps only a few molecules thick.
Some of the resulting water might subsequently evaporate away in bright sunlight.
Pictured above, the area near a crater on the
far side of the Moon shows a
relatively high abundance of water-carrying minerals in false-color blue.
Next week, the new
LCROSS satellite will release an
impactor that will strike a
permanently
shadowed crater
near the
lunar south pole to see if any hidden water or ice sprays free there.
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.
