William Atkins
Friday, 25 September 2009 20:31
Science -
Space
Page 2 of 3
NASA scientists are preliminarily saying that the quantity of water molecules found is about:
“… 1,000 water molecule parts-per-million.” They describe that amount as,
“…if you harvested one ton of the top layer of the Moon's surface, you could get as much as 32 ounces of water.”
And, the water was found in the top few millimeters of lunar soil, or regolith. The presence of water molecules and hydroxyl were found in larger quantities in the higher latitudes of the Moon, closer to its poles than near to its equator.
It was just reported, on September 20, 2009, that the
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter found hydrogen (H), a component of water (H
2O), at the south pole of the Moon. Check out the iTWire article “
Moon explorer points to hydrogen in sunny parts of south pole.”
NASA scientists are now more confident that they will find more water when they deliberately crash the
LCROSS (short for Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) spacecraft inside a crater near the southern pole of the Moon.
The crater has been identified as Cabeus A. The crashing of
LCROSS into Cabeus A is scheduled to occur on October 9, 2009, at 7:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).
Read the iTWire article “
NASA selects Cabeus A as lunar impact site for LCROSS.”
A lot of exciting discoveries are being made from explorations of the Moon. Currently, the Japanese
SELENE spacecraft (also known as Kaguya) is orbiting above the Moon.
The Indian
Chandrayaan-1, as noted earlier, is also exploring the Moon. As part of the LCROSS launch, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is also exploring the Moon for the United States.
The Chinese spacecraft
Chang’e had been orbiting the Moon since 2007, and was just recently, in March 2009, taken out of orbit and crashed into the lunar surface.
Page three concludes.
