Nasa has announced that its flying telescope has been used to confirm the presence of water on the sunlight surface of the Moon for the first time.
The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a modified Boeing 747SP jet with a 2.7-meter telescope that can observe from above 99.9% of water molecules in Earth's atmosphere, was able to detect the wavelength of water.
Scientists already know there is water on the Moon. It likely exists as ice in the permanently shadowed walls of craters so vast that some areas many have gone without a single ray of sunlight for billions of years. That's why NASA plans to send astronauts to the Moon's South Pole in 2024 to look for ice in Shackleton Crater, a massive impact crater about 13 miles across and several miles deep.
It's thought that cold traps inside could see temperatures of around minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit. However, in a paper published today in Nature Astronomy it appears that SOFIA has detected water molecules in Clavius Crater, one of the largest lunar craters visible from Earth, located in the Moon's southern hemisphere. SOFIA found 100 to 412 parts per million, which is roughly equivalent to a 12-ounce bottle of water, trapped in one cubic meter of soil spread across the lunar surface.
In Micro cold traps on the Moon, Hayne et al. explore the shadowy regions of the lunar surface that exist in a state of eternal darkness. They estimate that there are around 15000 square miles of permanent shadows that could contain ice. That's twice as much as previous predictions.
The study uses data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a satellite that has been in orbit of the Moon since 2009, to recreate what its surface might look like at a very small scale.
The lunar surface was thus revealed as like a golf ball, with the Moon's north and south poles especially bumpy and likely to contain many small-scale cold traps in tiny permanent shadows.
If we're right, water is going to be more accessible for drinking water, for rocket fuel, everything that NASA needs water for, said Hayne. Future missions looking for ice may be able to access these potential reservoirs much more easily than exploring a deep crater.
