NASA confirms presence of water ice at moon's polesAugust 21, 2018 - 17:44 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - There's water ice on the surface of the moon, a team of scientists has confirmed, and future expeditions could harvest it for human settlements. They used data collected by NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft to prove its presence and found ice deposits at the moon's poles, Egadget said. The idea that Earth's natural satellite has pockets of ice hiding in the shadows permanently hidden from the sun isn't anything new -- previous probes sent back data containing evidence of their existence. However, NASA says this is the "first time scientists have directly observed definitive evidence" that there's water ice on what people previously thought was a barren space rock. According to the paper published by PNAS, M3 was able to pick up the reflective properties you'd expect from ice at the moon's poles. It also measured the way the material's molecules absorb infrared light, which differs between liquid water and solid ice, ensuring that those deposits are actually frozen water. M3's data showed that those pockets of ice are sparsely distributed at the northern pole and more concentrated at the southern poles. Those ice deposits most likely formed because temperatures at the moon's poles, which sunlight never hits, don't go above -250 degrees Fahrenheit. Before we can count on them to sustain future manned missions, though, we first have to confirm just how big and deep they are. As Angel Abbud-Madrid, Colorado School of Mines Center for Space Resources' director, told Business Insider, we need to send a rover to examine them. Unfortunately, NASA already cancelled the Resource Prospector, a rover that was supposed to look and dig for ice and other resources on the moon future manned bases could use. The agency will still send the vehicle's instruments aboard other landers, but that might delay discoveries that could've been made sooner if they were equipped on a single rover. Top stories Yerevan will host the 2024 edition of the World Congress On Information Technology (WCIT). Rustam Badasyan said due to the lack of such regulation, the state budget is deprived of VAT revenues. Krisp’s smart noise suppression tech silences ambient sounds and isolates your voice for calls. Gurgen Khachatryan claimed that the "illegalities have been taking place in 2020." Partner news Most popular in the section | Kazakh Foreign Minister arrives in Armenia Kazakh Foreign Minister Murat Nurtleu on Monday, March 18 arrived in Armenia for a two-day trip. Aliyev touts “good chances” for normalizing ties with Armenia Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has declared that there are “good chances” for normalizing relations with Armenia. Putin secures fifth term as Russian president Russian President Vladimir Putin has secured a fifth term in office through a dubious national plebiscite. Top Armenian, Indian defense officials discuss cooperation The discussions primarily focused on enhancing cooperation in the defence sector between Armenia and India. |