A image showing Altitude measurements of South pole of moon taken by Lcrosshe LOLA instrument aboard Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The crater known as Cabeus has been selected as The LCROSS probe's target.OSS probe's target.Nearly one year back nasa discovered the existence of water molecules on man ,india's chandrayaan added more proof to it by its findings.Soon after in june,the $79 million lCross mission piggy backed no the lunar reconnaissance orbiter was launced to map the lunar surface.
Lcross steered the empty second stage of the rocket,which other wise would have just burned up in the atmosphere ,onto to a collison with the moon.
After slashing the surface of moon in october transmitted data to earth .in november last year the nasa reported that the impact had kicked up at least of 26 gallons of water confirming of ice in the craters. And in the new results increase the water estimate to about 40 gallons and by estimating the amount of dirt excavated by the impact, calculated the concentration of water for the first time.
That's the picture painted by six new studies that analyzed the intentional moon crash of a NASA spacecraft on Oct. 9, 2009. The agency's LCROSS probe was looking for signs of water when it smashed into Cabeus crater at the moon's south pole last year, and the spacecraft found plenty of it.
The new results expand on those original findings, revealing that Cabeus harbors many other compounds, too stuff like carbon monoxide, ammonia, methane, mercury and silver.
Scientists also confirmed the water was in the form of mostly pure ice crystals in some places. The results are featured in six papers published in the October 22 issue of Science.
"NASA has convincingly confirmed the presence of water ice and characterised its patchy distribution in permanently shadowed regions of the moon," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The twin impacts of LCROSS and a companion rocket stage in the moon's Cabeus crater on October 9, 2009, lifted a plume of material that might not have seen direct sunlight for billions of years.
As the plume traveled nearly 10 miles above the rim of Cabeus, instruments aboard LCROSS and LRO made observations of the crater and debris and vapour clouds.
After the impacts, grains of mostly pure water ice were lofted into the sunlight in the vacuum of space, NASA said.
"Seeing mostly pure water ice grains in the plume means water ice was somehow delivered to the moon in the past, or chemical processes have been causing ice to accumulate in large quantities," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.
"Also, the diversity and abundance of certain materials called volatiles in the plume, suggest a variety of sources, like comets and asteroids, and an active water cycle within the lunar shadow," he said.
Volatiles are compounds that freeze and are trapped in the cold lunar craters and vaporise when warmed by the sun.
The existence of mostly pure water ice could mean future human explorers would not have to retrieve the water out of the soil in order to use it for valuable life support resources.
In addition, an abundant presence of hydrogen gas, ammonia and methane could be exploited to produce fuel, it said.
That's the picture painted by six new studies that analyzed the intentional moon crash of a NASA spacecraft on Oct. 9, 2009. The agency's LCROSS probe was looking for signs of water when it smashed into Cabeus crater at the moon's south pole last year, and the spacecraft found plenty of it.
The new results expand on those original findings, revealing that Cabeus harbors many other compounds, too stuff like carbon monoxide, ammonia, methane, mercury and silver.
Scientists also confirmed the water was in the form of mostly pure ice crystals in some places. The results are featured in six papers published in the October 22 issue of Science.
"NASA has convincingly confirmed the presence of water ice and characterised its patchy distribution in permanently shadowed regions of the moon," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The twin impacts of LCROSS and a companion rocket stage in the moon's Cabeus crater on October 9, 2009, lifted a plume of material that might not have seen direct sunlight for billions of years.
As the plume traveled nearly 10 miles above the rim of Cabeus, instruments aboard LCROSS and LRO made observations of the crater and debris and vapour clouds.
After the impacts, grains of mostly pure water ice were lofted into the sunlight in the vacuum of space, NASA said.
"Seeing mostly pure water ice grains in the plume means water ice was somehow delivered to the moon in the past, or chemical processes have been causing ice to accumulate in large quantities," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.
"Also, the diversity and abundance of certain materials called volatiles in the plume, suggest a variety of sources, like comets and asteroids, and an active water cycle within the lunar shadow," he said.
Volatiles are compounds that freeze and are trapped in the cold lunar craters and vaporise when warmed by the sun.
The existence of mostly pure water ice could mean future human explorers would not have to retrieve the water out of the soil in order to use it for valuable life support resources.
In addition, an abundant presence of hydrogen gas, ammonia and methane could be exploited to produce fuel, it said.
No comments:
Post a Comment