Bomb and you shall find.
NASA today claimed success in its quest to find water on the moon. “Indeed, yes, we found water. And we didn’t find just a little bit, we found a significant amount,” said Anthony Colaprete, a principal project investigator at NASA’s Ames Research Center [AP].
Scientists had been analyzing data for more than a month since NASA crashed the LCROSS craft into the moon on October 9, which created a tiny crater in the polar region and kicked up a plume of material that had been beneath the lunar surface. NASA worried when the original impact didn’t create the easily visible plume of material that they’d anticipated, but later images showed that the mystery plume had been created and scientists were free to analyze its composition.
The results are clear: both infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers indicated the presence of water, and those readings got stronger over time, which is what you’d expect if you bombed the moon and created a plume full of water.
Previous space probes had indicated the presence of hydrogen in the lunar polar regions, but researchers hadn’t verified it until now. “LCROSS has now made that definitive discovery,” team member Greg Delory said at the press conference today. The confirmation of scientists’ suspicions is welcome news both to future explorers who might set up home on the lunar surface and to scientists who hope that the water, in the form of ice accumulated over billions of years, could hold a record of the solar system’s history [The New York Times]. For now, though, let’s just enjoy the sweet watery taste of success, and the fact that our whole understanding of Earth’s lone satellite has changed. “This is not your father’s moon,” Delory said.
Related Content:
Bad Astronomy: NASA Finds Reservoir of Water Ice on the Moon!
The Intersection: The Moon is a Wet Mistress
80beats: Lunar Impact! NASA Probe Slams into Moon to Search for Water
80beats: So What Exactly Happened with that Crashing Moon Probe?
80beats: Moon Plume Detected! NASA’s Lunar Crash Wasn’t a Flop, After All
Image: NASA
November 14th, 2009 at 5:06 am
Great news. Really interested that they can find water on Moon
November 14th, 2009 at 5:07 am
Is the water drinkable?
November 14th, 2009 at 8:08 am
When I was young one of my favorite subjects was Astronomy.
Now, the understanding of the new generation of mankind has changed and it could possibly in the near future that we could have our station in our own satellite ( Moon). This is one step forward into the advancement of Astronomy. The water there might not be potable because of the possible presence of toxic elements but at least the we have broken the piece of hidden reality, who knows we can find life-forms in the moon few decades from now.
Let us congratulate the scientists, group of astronomers, and others who contributed in the new discovery that might lead to the further exploration that will change what we believed.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:31 am
Let’s not jump the gun withthe lifeforms thing… even if they could be just microbes… but it is great that we now have strong information that will puts us much closer to having, pardon the cliche, a “moon base.”
November 16th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Water? ORLY? OH noes! That means moon monstersss. This could be a serious step forward to placin’ observatories on the moon. How freakin’ sway would that be? Having such clear shots of the world outside of our little marble, now that’s sweet!
November 17th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Hey; wait a minute!!!!! the moon is NOT belong to you…you’re getting into troubles, you’ll see your trespassing charges soon, it is matter of time. If you’re a scientist you should know that water appears in three phases, if, it is water. Have to be solid(ice), liquid and vapor(gas). And the moon have NO atmosphere, and not enough gravity like to prevent the escape of certain atoms,(molecules) like oxygen. Besides from the distance and by indirect scientific methods anything can be anything. It is said that in the next few years, some giantic destructive events are going to happen, the final days to humanity or part of us. Be careful, NASA, that with those rockets strikes against our moon, you can push it a litle fardest from us than it is and cause the catastrophe. You’re learning from what you’re doing, YOU don’t know the effects of what you’re doing, and from “space” YOU know NOTHING.
November 17th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
The entity that created the universe and us, didn’t authorize NASA to do what is doing against the moon. That is a felony, another sin, this time made not by a man or woman, but by another entity, NASA. When the creator created the universe, two persons committed sin, and after that, we all were guilty of the same sin. Now NASA is trying to get out of the planet where the creator put us, I hope, nothing else will happen again that the whole humanity will be charged of the same charge caused by NASA!!!!.-