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This mosaic, taken from a NASA animation, shows altitude measurements of the moon's south pole from the LOLA instrument aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance​.
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The search for the presence of lunar water has attracted considerable attention and motivated several recent lunar missions, largely because of water's usefulness in rendering long-term lunar habitation feasible. The possibility of ice in the floors of polar lunar craters was first suggested in by Caltech researchers Kenneth Watson, Bruce C.

Murray, and Harrison Brown. A series of bursts of water vapor ions were observed by the instrument mass spectrometer at the lunar surface near the Apollo 14 landing site. In February Soviet scientists M. Akhmanova, B.

Water on the Moon

Dement'ev, and M. Markov of the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry published a paper claiming a detection of water fairly definitively. A proposed evidence of water ice on the Moon came in from the United States military Clementine probe. In an investigation known as the ' bistatic radar experiment', Clementine used its transmitter to beam radio waves into the dark regions of the south pole of the Moon. The magnitude and polarisation of these echoes was consistent with an icy rather than rocky surface, but the results were inconclusive, [19] and their significance has been questioned.

The Lunar Prospector probe, launched in , employed a neutron spectrometer to measure the amount of hydrogen in the lunar regolith near the polar regions. Based on data from Clementine and Lunar Prospector, NASA scientists have estimated that, if surface water ice is present, the total quantity could be of the order of 1—3 cubic kilometres 0.

However, spectroscopic observations from ground-based telescopes did not reveal the spectral signature of water.

More suspicions about the existence of water on the Moon were generated by inconclusive data produced by Cassini—Huygens mission, [29] which passed the Moon in In , observations of the Moon by the Deep Impact spacecraft produced inconclusive spectroscopic data suggestive of water on the Moon. In , observations with the Arecibo planetary radar showed that some of the near-polar Clementine radar returns, previously claimed to be indicative of ice, might instead be associated with rocks ejected from young craters.

If true, this would indicate that the neutron results from Lunar Prospector were primarily from hydrogen in forms other than ice, such as trapped hydrogen molecules or organics. Nevertheless, the interpretation of the Arecibo data do not exclude the possibility of water ice in permanently shadowed craters. As part of its lunar mapping programme, Japan's Kaguya probe, launched in September for a month mission, carried out gamma ray spectrometry observations from orbit that can measure the abundances of various elements on the Moon's surface.

The People's Republic of China's Chang'e 1 orbiter, launched in October , took the first detailed photographs of some polar areas where ice water is likely to be found. During its minute descent, the impact probe's Chandra's Altitudinal Composition Explorer CHACE recorded evidence of water in mass spectra gathered in the thin atmosphere above the Moon's surface and hydroxyl absorption lines in reflected sunlight. The general lack of correlation of this feature in sunlit M 3 data with neutron spectrometer H abundance data suggests that the formation and retention of OH and H 2 O is an ongoing surficial process.

In addition to observing reflected light from the surface, scientists used M 3 's near-infrared absorption capabilities in the permanently shadowed areas of the polar regions to find absorption spectra consistent with ice. At the north pole region, the water ice is scattered in patches, while it is more concentrated in a single body around the south pole. Because these polar regions do not experience the high temperatures greater than Kelvin , it was postulated that the poles act as cold traps where vaporized water is collected on the Moon.

The ice must be relatively pure and at least a couple of meters thick to give this signature. The nature, concentration and distribution of this material requires further analysis; [48] chief mission scientist Anthony Colaprete has stated that the ejecta appears to include a range of fine-grained particulates of near pure crystalline water-ice. The data acquired by the Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector LEND instrument onboard LRO show several regions where the epithermal neutron flux from the surface is suppressed, which is indicative of enhanced hydrogen content.

In May , Erik Hauri et al. The inclusions were formed during explosive eruptions on the Moon approximately 3. This concentration is comparable with that of magma in Earth's upper mantle. While of considerable selenological interest, this announcement affords little comfort to would-be lunar colonists. The sample originated many kilometers below the surface, and the inclusions are so difficult to access that it took 39 years to detect them with a state-of-the-art ion microprobe instrument.

It has been theorized that the latter may occur when hydrogen ions protons in the solar wind chemically combine with the oxygen atoms present in the lunar minerals oxides , silicates etc. The mass balance of a chemical rearrangement supposed at the oxide surface could be schematically written as follows:.

What can we do with the water on the Moon? We ask Planetary physicist Philip Metzger

The formation of one water molecule requires the presence of two adjacent hydroxyl groups, or a cascade of successive reactions of one oxygen atom with two protons. This could constitute a limiting factor and decreases the probability of water production, if the proton density per surface unit is too low. Solar radiation would normally strip any free water or water ice from the lunar surface, splitting it into its constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen , which then escape to space.

However, because of the only very slight axial tilt of the Moon's spin axis to the ecliptic plane 1. While the ice deposits may be thick, they are most likely mixed with the regolith, possibly in a layered formation. Although free water cannot persist in illuminated regions of the Moon, any such water produced there by the action of the solar wind on lunar minerals might, through a process of evaporation and condensation, migrate to permanently cold polar areas and accumulate there as ice, perhaps in addition to any ice brought by comet impacts.

Given the expected short lifetime of water molecules in illuminated regions, a short transport distance would in principle increase the probability of trapping.

Study: There’s Way More Water on the Moon Than We Thought

In other words, water molecules produced close to a cold, dark polar crater should have the highest probability of surviving and being trapped. To what extent, and at what spatial scale, direct proton exchange protolysis and proton surface diffusion directly occurring at the naked surface of oxyhydroxide minerals exposed to space vacuum see surface diffusion and self-ionization of water could also play a role in the mechanism of the water transfer towards the coldest point is presently unknown and remains a conjecture.

The presence of large quantities of water on the Moon would be an important factor in rendering lunar habitation cost-effective since transporting water or hydrogen and oxygen from Earth would be prohibitively expensive. Solar wind and meteor collisions are kicking up the water molecules. Not only are ice water particles being scattered across the Moon, but comets hurling into the Moon also replenish ice stores. It is not yet clear just how much water is on the Moon and whether the frozen water particles are only located on the surface. However, the fact that water particles are dispersing across different latitudes on the Moon is good news for future lunar exploration.

Astronauts may not have to descend into craters to study water on the Moon. Instead, analyzing soil samples from the sunnier regions of the Moon could yield the same data. Most of these water molecules are ultimately lost in space because the constant sunlight over most of the Moon's surface breaks them back into pieces.

But a fraction of the water created this way eventually reaches the lunar poles and is sheltered from the sun. Here is a diagram illustrating this process:. Four years later, the Lunar Prospector found similar, but still inconclusive, evidence for water.

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NASA scientists even crashed Prospector onto the Moon's surface in an attempt to generate a cloud of dust and water ice, but no such cloud was detected. Finding out conclusively whether there really is water ice on the Moon is one of LRO's major objectives. If the answer is yes, it will be much easier to establish the planned lunar base. Water can be used not only for human and plant consumption but also to make air, rocket fuel and a shield against dangerous space radiation.

In addition to LAMP's ulraviolet-sensing technology see the Science and the Instrument page for a detailed explanation of that , several of the other instruments aboard LRO will be aiding the search for water. If the surface has ice, the reflections will be brighter. Another instrument, Diviner, will check to see which parts of the lunar surface are really cold enough to prevent evaporation. Because water absorbs neutrons, a drop in their count from any area on the Moon could indicate the presence of water.