The findings of an Indian space mission supports other evidence that
there is water on the moon, raising hopes that a manned base could be
established there within the next two decades.
Although the mission was not a complete success and was cut short, data from India’s
Chandrayaan-1, launched last year, allegedly found clear evidence of water there, apparently concentrated at the poles and possibly formed by the solar wind.
The findings back up evidence of water on the moon found by two NASA probes –
Deep Impact and
Cassini – and the research from the three missions will be published in the journal
Science on Friday.
What’s more, the
Guardian
and other newspapers report, water appears to still be forming,
advancing the possibility that human life could be sustained there.
Scientists hope that astronauts could one day not only drink the water
but extract oxygen from it to breathe and hydrogen to use as fuel.
The moon has long held a fascination for Indians, not just in terms of space exploration.
Launched last year, the
Chandrayaan-1 mission aimed to
deliver high-resolution remote sensing of the moon in visible, near
infrared (NIR), low energy X-rays and high-energy X-ray regions,
preparing a three-dimensional atlas of both near and far side of the
moon.
The mission was, unfortunately, cut short
due to problems caused by the underestimated effects of direct solar heat and reflected lunar heat,
with Indian press blaming their own scientists for not ensuring there
was enough insulation inside and outside Chandrayaan-1 for its failure.
Despite this, European scientists praised the mission and the water finds are a bonus for the Indian Space Research Organisation,
which took a lot of flack earlier this month for its apparent shortcomings.
“It’s very satisfying,” Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, told the
Times of the water finds. “This was one of the main objectives of
Chandrayaan-1, to find evidence of water on the moon.”
Carle Pieters, of Brown University on Rhode Island, and colleagues reviewed data from India’s
Chandrayaan-1 mission and found spectrographic evidence of water, apparently thicker closer to the poles.
“When we say ‘water on the moon,’ we are not talking about lakes,
oceans or even puddles,” Pieters said in a statement. “Water on the moon
means molecules of water and hydroxyl (hydrogen and oxygen) that
interact with molecules of rock and dust specifically in the top
millimetres of the moon’s surface.”
Previously, infrared mapping from NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft had
been used to show water all over the moon, while Roger Clark of the US
Geological Survey and colleagues used a spectrometer – which breaks down
light waves to analyse elements and chemicals reflecting them – from
the Cassini spacecraft to identify water.
Next month, Nasa’s
Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite or LCROSS mission will try to detect water by deliberately crashing a large spacecraft on to the moon.
Although its life was cut short, ISRO’s Chandrayaan-1 was a
“fantastic success”, according to Detlef Koschny, European Chandrayaan-1
project scientist. He told the
Times of India Chandrayaan-1 had carried three scientific payloads of the European Space Agency (ESA).
“I think (the) Indian press should stop trying to put ISRO down,” he
told the paper. “You should rather acknowledge the fantastic
achievements your space agency did,” he said, listing many of the
achievements.
“You sent a spacecraft to the Moon and entered a low lunar orbit — a very high challenge which is already a fantastic success.
“Secondly, all scientific instruments were commissioned and worked
flawlessly. The data came down, over a distance of about 400,000 km and
it was put together into images, atomic counts etc.”
Web Links
• Indian Space Research Organisation
• Chandrayaan Mission Page
• If you’re having an “Impact Night” event on 8th October and/or 9 the tools @ http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/impactkit/ can help you. Let NASA know via @ arc-dl-ameswebteam@mail.nasa.gov if you are putting on an event so we can help disseminate the information to the public. Additional Resources are available at: http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/resources/
