NASA confirms presence of water on sunlit parts of lunar surface
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The moon’s shadowed, frigid nooks and crannies may hold frozen water in more places and in larger quantities than previously suspected. And for the first time, the presence of water on the moon’s sunlit surface has been confirmed, scientists reported Monday.
While previous observations have indicated millions of tons of ice in the permanently shadowed craters of the moon’s poles, a pair of studies in the journal Nature Astronomy take the availability of lunar surface water to a new level.
More than 15,400 square miles of lunar terrain have the capability to trap water in the form of ice, according to a team led by the University of Colorado’s Paul Hayne. That’s 20% more area than previous estimates, he said.
The presence of water in sunlit surfaces had been previously suggested, but not confirmed. The molecules are so far apart that they are in neither liquid nor solid form, said lead researcher Casey Honniball, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
“To be clear, this is not puddles of water,” she stressed.
NASA’s astrophysics director Paul Hertz said it’s too soon to know whether this water — found in and around the southern hemisphere’s sunlit Clavius Crater — would be acces
sible.
For now, NASA said it still aims to send astronauts to the lunar south pole, especially rich in frozen water. The White House deadline is 2024.
As for the shadowed areas believed to be brimming with frozen water near the moon’s north and south poles, temperatures are so low that they could hold onto the water for millions or billions of years. These so-called cold traps get down to minus 261 degrees Fahrenheit.
Using data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the researchers identified cold traps as small as a few yards across and as wide as 18 miles and more.
For the second study, scientists used NASA’s airborne infrared observatory Sofia to identify water molecules on sunlit portions of the moon just outside the polar regions. Most of these molecules are likely stored in the voids between moon dust and other particles or entombed in the glassy residue of of micrometeorite impacts.