NASA Finds Water on the Moon

ohshit.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8359744.stm

"Nasa's experiment last month to find water on the Moon was a major success, US scientists have announced.

The space agency smashed a rocket and a probe into a large crater at the lunar south pole, hoping to kick up ice.

Scientists who have studied the data now say instruments trained on the impact plume saw copious quantities of water vapour.

One researcher described this as the equivalent of "a dozen two-gallon buckets" of water.

"We didn't just find a little bit; we found a significant amount," said Anthony Colaprete, chief scientist for the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission.

October's experiment involved driving a 2,200kg Centaur rocket stage into the 100km-wide Cabeus crater, a permanently shadowed depression at the Moon's far south.

At the time, scientists were hoping for a big plume of debris some 10km high which could be seen by Earth telescopes.

The actual debris cloud was much smaller, about 1.6km high, but sufficiently large to betray the evidence researchers were seeking.

The spectrometers on the LCROSS probe that followed the rocket into the crater detected water-ice, water vapour and the OH molecule, which arises when water is broken apart in sunlight.

"We were able to match the spectra from LCROSS data only when we inserted the spectra for water," Dr Colaprete said.

"No other reasonable combination of other compounds that we tried matched the observations. The possibility of contamination from the Centaur also was ruled out."

The total quantity of H2O spied by the instruments was about 100kg.

Peter Schultz, from Brown University and a co-investigator on the LCROSS mission, said: "What's really exciting is we've only hit one spot. It's kind of like when you're drilling for oil. Once you find it in one place, there's a greater chance you'll find more nearby."

The regular surface of the Moon as seen from Earth is drier than any desert on our planet. But researchers have long speculated that some permanently shadowed places might harbour considerable stores of water, perhaps delivered by impacting comets billions of years ago.

If future investigations find the quantities to be particularly large, this water could become a useful resource for any astronauts who might base themselves at the lunar poles.

They could use it as drinking water, or to make rocket fuel.

In September, data from three spacecraft, including India's Chandrayaan probe, showed that very fine films of H2O coat the particles that make up lunar soil.

Scientists behind that finding speculated that this water might migrate to the slightly cooler poles, much as water vapour on Earth will condense on a cold surface.

This cold sink effect could be supplementing any water delivered by comets, they said."