Lunar craters hidden from direct sunlight, located in the coldest polar regions of our natural satellite, contain reserves of water ice. In the future, lunar colonists will be able to use it to maintain lunar settlements. The final confirmation of ice on the Moon is reported in an article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Data on the presence of ice on the Moon were collected using the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), developed by the NASA aerospace agency, installed on the Indian satellite Chandrayan-1. The data was analyzed by scientists from Brown University, the University of Hawaii, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of California, Johns Hopkins University, as well as specialists from the Ames Research Center (NASA).
Astronomers have long suspected that there are ice-filled "pockets" hidden on the Moon, so-called "cold traps" protected from direct sunlight. Previous data from lunar orbiting vehicles indicated such a possibility. However, NASA notes that this is "the first time that scientists have managed to obtain convincing and direct evidence of its presence."
The Indian Space Agency's (ISRO) Chandrayan-1 probe was launched to our planet's satellite in 2008. Its main goal was to find confirmation of the presence of solid ice on the lunar surface. A PNAS article reports that NASA's scientific instrument M3 was still able to determine the reflective properties of ice on the lunar surface. In addition, the apparatus was also able to directly determine the special way in which the ice molecules absorbed infrared radiation, which makes it possible to distinguish between water in a liquid or gaseous state and solid ice.
“Most of the ice is in the shadow of craters near the poles, where temperatures don't rise above -250 degrees Fahrenheit (-156.5 degrees Celsius). Sunlight never enters these parts of the surface due to the slight tilt of the moon's axis of rotation,”say the scientists who analyzed the data.
Map of the North and South Poles of the Moon, which shows the zones of presence of water ice.
The researchers also note that most of the discovered ice reserves are mainly concentrated in the South Pole of the Moon, while at the North Pole these reserves are much less. The probe was unable to determine exactly how deep the ice is, but the study says that the surface of the satellite, in the shadowed polar regions, can contain up to about 3.5 percent of the total ice reserves on the satellite.
According to scientists, before relying on these ice reserves for satellite colonization missions, we need to send several autonomous lunar rovers there and find out the real volumes of the reserves and their location on the surface or below it.
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The presence of ice on the moon does not simply mean the availability of a source of drinking water for future satellite colonizers. It also means the possibility of converting water into fuel. By splitting water into atoms and producing oxygen and hydrogen from it, the future inhabitants of the moon will be able to produce fuel that can be used to further conquer the solar system.
Nikolay Khizhnyak