Ice confirmed at lunar poles
The find could be mine for water and oxygen by future lunar missions
Water has been confirmed on the surface of the Moon for the first time. Astronomers taking a fresh look at data from the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter found the spectroscopic signature of water around the lunar poles.
A team of scientists made the discovery by re-evaluating observations taken in 2009 by the orbiter’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper – a spectrometer which created an atlas of the mineral compounds found across the Moon’s surface. This map revealed deposits of water ice concentrated around the lunar craters of the southern pole.
As the Moon is only slightly tilted on its axis, there are some parts of craters that sunlight never reaches. These shadowy corners never rise above –150°C, meaning the water remains frozen and does not evaporate or sublime away. There is also ice around the northern pole, but it is more sparsely spread over a wider area.
Several previous observations of the Moon have shown evidence of lunar water. These included a mission where an impactor was crashed into a crater shadow, and water was observed in the ejecta. But it was unclear whether this water was at the surface, underneath it or locked up in rocks.
This latest discovery, though, is within the first few millimetres of lunar regolith making it easily accessible for future lunar missions. Finding water has been a priority for NASA as part of its mission to return astronauts to the Moon, since could be mined for use both as drinking water and a potential source of oxygen.
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