Cold, dark polar regions may hold a key to the history and evolution of the solar system, writes DICK AHLSTROMScience Editor
IT IS now beyond doubt: scientists have confirmed there is water on the moon, and it may be there in large amounts.
News of the discovery came yesterday from Nasa after a preliminary analysis of data from its LCross satellite mission. The discovery opens a “new chapter in our understanding of the moon”, the space agency said.
LCross was launched last June 18th, its kamikaze mission to crash headlong into a crater at the moon’s south pole. The crater, Cabeus, is so close to the pole that sunlight never reaches its floor, leading scientists to believe it might contain ice.
They tested the idea by crashing LCross into the crater, the object being to kick material from Cabeus’s permanently dark floor up into sunlight where it could be analysed using sensitive spectrographs.
The satellite had two parts – a piece of the depleted Centaur rocket from the launch vehicle, and LCross itself. The former detached and hit the crater to throw up a plume of material. LCross followed four minutes later, its cameras and analysis equipment capturing data up to the moment it, too, hit the surface.
Vast amounts of data were captured and relayed back to Nasa before LCross disappeared into Cabeus, its mission complete. Preliminary analysis of this data has allowed Nasa to announce that water is present there, and
possibly in larger amounts than suspected.
“We are ecstatic,” said project scientist Anthony Colaprete. He ruled out any possible misread, or doubts about contamination by the Centaur rocket. It was water pure and simple.
This is no ordinary water, however. “The permanently shadowed regions of the moon are truly cold traps, collecting and preserving material over billions of years,” Colaprete said.
If the water that was formed or deposed in the crater is billions of years old, then these polar cold traps could hold a key to the history and evolution of the solar system.
Irish scientists were delighted with news of the discovery. “The significance of this is they found large amounts in a single location,” said Kevin Nolan, physics lecturer at IT Tallaght and author of Mars: A Cosmic Stepping Stone.
This would make it much easier for humans to live for periods on the lunar surface, given it costs more than €7,000 to lift each kilo of water into orbit, he said.
“It is a very important find,” said Prof Tom Ray of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
“It is going to make a difference in terms of future lunar bases. How far in the future is anybody’s guess,” he added.
The water could be used to produce fuel, oxygen for breathing and also as liquid water.