Data analyzed from the recently aborted mission of Chandrayaan confirms the presence of water on the Moon. This discovery is due to the Moon Minerology Mapper (M3) device from NASA, carried on board Chandrayaan. NASA will hold a press conference later today to brief about the new scientific findings. NASA confirms this and thanks ISRO.
As it stands today, three different spacecraft have confirmed the presence of water on the Moon. Water doesn’t seem to be present in the craters and crevices but as hydroxyl or water molecules strewn diffusely across the moon’s surface in low concentrations. The Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) on board Chandrayaan was able to detect wavelengths of light reflected off the surface that indicated bonds between hydrogen and oxygen molecules. This means the presence of is either water or hydroxyl.
Hydrogen deposits measured by Lunar Prospector
Since water and the hydroxyl ion, OH- absorb light at particular wavelengths, one can expect a dip in the reflectance of the Moon’s surface that is coated with them. The following graph, shows this. (pic. original credit – three papers released today: one each by Roger Clark, Paul Lucey, and Carle Pieters, co-authored with the rest of the Chandrayaan team)
(click image to reach the source)
The following image shows a typical region on the Moon where Chandrayaan-1 found water and its component molecule, hydroxyl.
The above image is from NASA release linked to in a detailed Bad Astronomy post that explains the detection, amount and source of water present on the Moon.
More on how much hydroxyl molecules could be present on the Moon and related information is provided in in this Space.com post and the Discovery Channel news item.
Interestingly, the data from Chandrayaan, as interpreted in the above papers (I haven’t read them yet) suggests that such watery reflectance behavior is present all over the Moon’s surface. To quote from Ethan Siegel’s post
They find it everywhere on the Moon, and just millimeters below the surface! Their estimates from the data show that for every cubic meter of the Moon’s soil, there is approximately one liter of water buried (and probably frozen) there.
An explanation of how this is possible is provided in this collage from NASA (pic courtesy: The Hindu)
source: The Hindu
Here is a page by NASA on water on moon from which the image above is taken. A recent post at the Universe Today written by Nancy Atkinson should provide further details of the earlier confirmation results of presence of the water. Another note at Astroengine carries some news bites.
Here is a video explaining how water could be formed on Moon. Here is a news video of the announcement.
Although aborted prematurely, Chandrayaan is proving its mettle for the growing Indian space program. Finding evidence of water on Moon was one of the main objectives of Chandrayaan-1. As Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, the project director of Chandrayaan-1 at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Bangalore says, “It’s very satisfying”.
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