We found water on moon, courtesy ISRO, says NASA

NASA on Thursday revealed that India's maiden lunar mission Chandrayaan-I had traced water molecules on the moon's surface. It also "thanked" ISRO for making the discovery possible.

We want to thank ISRO for making the discovery possible. Moon till now was thought to be a very dry surface with lot of rocks, NASA said in a press conference.

Discovery of moon is a major leap in our knowledge of the moon. NASAs instruments helped finding the water molecules in collaboration with ISRO, NASA said.

Instruments aboard three separate spacecrafts, one of them the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, a NASA instrument onboard Chandrayaan-I revealed water molecules in amounts that are greater than predicted, but still relatively small, it added.

"Water ice on the moon has been something of a holy grail for lunar scientists for a very long time," said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

"This surprising finding has come about through the ingenuity, perseverance and international cooperation between NASA and the India Space Research Organisation," he said.

From its perch in lunar orbit, NASA said M3's state-of-the-art spectrometer measured light reflecting off the moon's surface at infrared wavelengths, splitting the spectral colours of the lunar surface into small enough bits to reveal a new level of detail in surface composition.

When the M3 science team analysed data from the instrument, they found the wavelengths of light being absorbed were consistent with the absorption patterns for water molecules and hydroxyl.

"For silicate bodies, such features are typically attributed to water and hydroxyl-bearing materials," Carle Pieters, M3's principal investigator from Brown University said.

She added that by 'water on the moon,' they did not mean lakes, oceans or even puddles. Water on the moon means molecules of water and hydroxyl that interact with molecules of rock and dust specifically in the top millimeters of the moon's surface.

NASA said the M3 team found water molecules and hydroxyl at diverse areas of the sunlit region of the moon's surface, but the water signature appeared stronger at the moon's higher latitudes.

Data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, or VIMS, on NASA's Cassini spacecraft and the High-Resolution Infrared Imaging Spectrometer on NASA's EPOXI spacecraft contributed to confirmation of the finding.

"The data from Cassini's VIMS instrument and M3 closely agree," said Roger Clark, a US Geological Survey scientist in Denver and member of both the VIMS and M3 teams.

"We see both water and hydroxyl. While the abundances are not precisely known, as much as 1,000 water molecule parts-per-million could be in the lunar soil. To put that into perspective, if you harvested one ton of the top layer of the moon's surface, you could get as much as 32 ounces of water," Clark said.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• isro
• nasa
• chandrayaan
• moon
• water molecule
• spacecraft
• mineralogy mapper
• luna scientists
• washington
• india space research
• m3
• university
• cassini
• epoxi
• geological survey
• Chandrayaan
• Chandrayaan-1
• ISRO
• Space
• Moon
• Mission
• PSLV
• India
• Rising
• Thejes
• Indian
• Dev
• Devendra
• Astronaut
• GSLV
• Rover
• Avatar
• Spacecraft
• Rocket
• Launch
• Vehicle
• NASA
• Chandrayaan1

[sonu9180]

People Who think exploring space a waste of time and money then according to them humans should not have ventured out of africa. These duffers fail to understand that its in our gentic make up to explore our surrounding.

[bharathkamana]

great indians.... mera bharath mahan........!!

[rathranjankumar]

jay hind-:)

[gauresh12345]

mera bharat mahan aur desh ke knowledge bechane walae brahman he beman...gaddar

[TheIvanov4]

@learninganimation

is your mom a bitch?

[TheIvanov4]

@learninganimation

shut up!

[DaddyUnderground323]

and why didn't i see this on the news -_- i had to find out from youtube... so glad we have such a site

[DaddyUnderground323]

@Luccasio1 knowledge, that water can be found in unexpected places.

[Luccasio1]

Water on moon.... what the benefit for the earth and humans?

[silverthunderable]

@AMORANDPAZ this was a precise info from ISRO chandrayaan-1

[yourboycal]

@sonu9180 its only a wate of time when people constantly lie to you about what the money is being used for. People are sick and tired of useless pointless spending . If they can be honest show some value be sincere it would be much differnt. But we have tyrants who dictate what happens with our money when i thought they were suppose to serve us