LONDON – For the first time, scientists have directly observed definitiveevidence of water ice on the moon’s surface, U.S. space agency NASA hassaid.
Most of the newly found water ice lies in the shadows of craters near themoon’s polar regions, where sunlight never reaches and the warmesttemperatures never reach above minus 250 degrees Fahrenheit (about minus157 degrees Celsius), NASA said in a statement earlier this week.
“These ice deposits are patchily distributed and could possibly beancient,” the statement said.
“At the southern pole, most of the ice is concentrated at lunar craters,while the northern pole’s ice is more widely, but sparsely spread,” itadded.
Previous observations found possible signs of surface ice at the lunarsouth pole, but these could have been explained by other phenomena, such asunusually reflective lunar soil.
In the latest study, scientists used data from NASA’s Moon MineralogyMapper (M3) instrument to confirm the presence of solid ice on the moon.
M3 collected data that not only picked up the reflective properties of ice,but was able to directly measure the distinctive way its molecules absorbinfrared light, so as to differentiate between liquid water or vapor andsolid ice.
“With enough ice sitting at the surface — within the top few millimeters– water would possibly be accessible as a resource for future expeditionsto explore and even stay on the Moon, and potentially easier to access thanthe water detected beneath the Moon’s surface,” the statement said.
“Learning more about this ice, how it got there, and how it interacts withthe larger lunar environment will be a key mission focus for NASA andcommercial partners, as we endeavor to return to and explore our closestneighbor, the Moon,” it added. -APP/AFP