Could these hydrogen atoms be part of water molecules?Īrmed with Clementine and Lunar Prospector data, scientists were almost certain that there was water on the Moon, but they needed to be absolutely sure. Its neutron spectrometer found that the number of neutrons in the soil corresponded with the presence of hydrogen atoms. NASA sent another orbiter in 1998, called the Lunar Prospector, to find out if there was water ice in the PSRs. Scientists found the nature of the reflected signals to be consistent with water ice, although they couldn’t be 100% sure. The signals bounced off the PSRs and were received by ground stations on Earth. Its Bistatic Radar Experiment beamed radio signals straight into the PSRs. In 1994, NASA launched the Clementine lunar orbiter. They have proposed that some fraction of this water could have found its way into PSRs, where – like sitting inside a refrigerator – they could’ve been preserved for billions of years.
This is why the Moon is covered in craters, and scientists think the asteroids and comets responsible for them could have deposited water on the Moon. For most of the Solar System’s existence, these objects have been bombarding planets and their moons at a vigorous pace. Scientists know that comets and many types of asteroids contain water. Photo: NASA LROīut where could the water have come from? Permanently shadowed regions on the lunar south pole, highlighted in blue. Such places are eternally dark and are called permanently shadowed regions (PSRs). Likewise, large craters with terraced edges can easily block sunlight from entering the crater, so sunlight is blocked for 360°. On the lunar poles, the Sun is very close to the local horizon throughout the day so even a small feature, like a rock, can cast very long shadows. However, there are certain regions on the Moon that haven’t received sunlight for more than a billion years, and where scientists think the water can be. And due to the Moon’s low gravity, water vapour quickly escapes into space. The Moon has a very thin atmosphere, so any water on its surface is exposed directly to the vacuum of space, and evaporates. When they did find traces of water in the samples, scientists dismissed them as contamination. The 382 kg of rock and soil samples the Apollo missions brought from the Moon to Earth attested to this. This is where NASA’s LRO and Chandrayaan 2 come in.įor most of the 20th century, scientists argued the Moon’s surface was bone-dry. In the 10 years since, the next step has been to understand the exact nature of and the amount of water the Moon hosts.
After decades of work, scientists used Chandrayaan 1 and NASA’s LCROSS to finally discover water on the Moon in 2009.
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