Update on our mission to shoot the moon, and the news is excellent. Water has been confirmed to reside within the permanently shadowed lunar craters of the southern pole, and there is plenty of it. The live viewing of the LCROSS satellite impact was not as glorious as some had hoped, but after giving the researchers at the Ames Research Center time to review the data, spectrographic data shows conclusively the existence of H2O. According to NASA.gov,
The team took the known near infrared spectral signatures of water and other materials and compared them to the spectra collected by the LCROSS near infrared spectrometer of the impact.
"We were only able to match the spectra from LCROSS data when we inserted the spectra for water," said Colaprete. "No other reasonable combination of other compounds that we tried matched the observations. The possibility of contamination from the Centaur also was ruled out."
Additional confirmation came from an emission in the ultraviolet spectrum that was attributed to hydroxyl, one product from the break-up of water by sunlight. When atoms and molecules are excited, they release energy at specific wavelengths that are detected by the spectrometers. A similar process is used in neon signs. When electrified, a specific gas will produce a distinct color. The ultraviolet visible spectrometer detected hydroxyl signatures just after impact that are consistent with a water vapor cloud in sunlight.
According to Anthony Colaprete, the LCROSS teams principal investigator, just within the plumage of the impact was several gallons worth of water, "about a dozen two gallon buckets" worth. What makes this all so compelling is what it could mean for future space exploration, and colonizing our closest heavenly neighbor. Weight is a very limiting aspect of rocketry. For every pound of material you need to bring with you into space, it takes several times that weight in fuel to get it off the planet, and of course that fuel has its own weight, which means you need more fuel to lift the fuel needed to lift your material! A one time trip of equipment which could be used to extract water from the lunar regolith will save us far more money, time and effort, then bringing the water we need along with us.
Plus, who doesn't want to be the first to drink a nice cool, refreshing glass of moon water?
Comments
Me can haz moon water pleeze?
FAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY TOTALY MADE THAT UP AND PHOTOSHOPPED IT!!!!!
water on the moon....kewwwl
awsome. i wonder how much it would cost to get some moon water
one hundred years from now this will be no big deal. think large scale, NASA is too slow on the ball for all the govenment spending.
why is there always some nutt saying that all the moon stuff if fake... be thankful that our gov and nasa take the time to explore for you, yes with your tax dollars as well. if water is this abundant and the fact is we found water in the dark crater, wow and wow..water is everywhere, usually frozen. yes sometimes you have to drill for it. be thankful for you in your next life,dimension might be cruising the moon yearning for that all giving source of life we call w a t e r.
this also means that if water is on the moon, then some bacteria probably has evolved somewhere on the moon. where there is water, there is life period. water is awesome, how many forms does water come in? mist,steam, fog, rain, dryice, ice itself, nitrogen types! mars at one time had water! its there also. at least eighty square miles is frozen on the north pole of mars!!!
mars will have water in many areas,,,,drill baby drill !!!...build it and they will come. we landed a satellite on titan, one of jupiters moon and it landed on a hard surface we call land, and on both sides was methane lakes. our solar system is not as lonely as one might think. all are worlds waiting to bloom at the right time, the right place, the right distance to any source of heat to provide the other essential building block of life we call h e a t./w a r m t h.
TOM--NO MOON WATER FOR YOU!
colonize the moon? that hasn't really worked so well in the past.. why do humans INSIST on repeating former humans mistakes. i quite like Earth water. the moon is the moon. leave it there. lets deal with the probems on the Earth before we start moving away from it.
Water might be the gate to organisms on the moon but I cannot see why it would be so much different to the simple life forms on our planet. But this is exciting times, yes.
tahlulah, What are you talking about? Man-made global warming is total BS. It is an anti-business movement using the environment to get unintelligent people to join. Big business is only powerful because corrupt governments allow it.
Jim... you are retarded.
-Management.
Also. Tahlulah is correct to some extent. There are many issues here on Earth that do need to be dealt with, immediately. Having said that, there is nothing wrong with discoveries such as this. Knowing that it may be possible to sustain some amount of life away from, but still very close to Earth could be very beneficial to our planet as a whole.
Dude that is soooo cool i never new that our moon had water!!
Dude that is soooo cool!! In never new our moon had water!
this is totally FAKE!!!! GOSH lala you are such a LOSER!
Pluto Luver--NO MOON WATER FOR YOU !!!!!!! NOT EVEN FOR MOISTURIZER ON PLUTO !!!!!!! AND ON YOUR WAY THERE, YOUR LUGGAGE SHOULD BE RE-ROUTED TO BEIRUT !!!!!!!! AND YOU SHOULD HAVE TO PICK IT UP PERSONAL !!!!!!!!!!!!! AND NO MOON WATER IN THE BEIRUT-Y DESERT NEITHER !!!!!!!!!!! ACH MEIN GOTT !!!!!!!!!
cool
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