Water, water, everywhere, but not a soul to drink

Moon much damper than previously thought

NASA scientists confirmed last week that the moon harbours significant amounts of water in deep crevasses of its surface.

Visions of cliff-diving astronauts or low-gravity figure skating (and you thought a quad was impressive) may not materialize, but the conversion of moon water to rocket fuel may in fact be a practical and economical way to propel those astronauts through the cosmos.

The suggestion of water’s presence on the moon has been debated even before the crew of Apollo 11 returned to Earth with bagfuls of the lunar surface.

Although scientists did detect the presence of very small amounts of water in these samples, it was extremely difficult to rule out the possibility of contamination from Earth’s atmosphere.

The general consensus was that the lunar surface was as dry as your intro physics class – you know, the one with the monotone prof who won’t stop talking about blocks that may or may not slide down an inclined plane.

Analyzing rocks in a lab didn’t work, so this time, NASA scientists decided to crash a multi-million dollar satellite into our moon.

The kamikaze mission saw the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) closely follow a rocket into the depths of a lunar crater. LCROSS analyzed the spectral signal of the plume of debris created by the rocket’s impact, which allowed scientists to acquire precious data about the chemical composition inside this crater. According to NASA, the material ejected upon impact hasn’t seen the sunlight in over a billion years – talk about a vitamin D deficiency.

Just weeks before the crash landing, India’s first lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1, carrying NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), found evidence of water on the moon’s surface. Light reflected off the lunar surface and detected by M3 showed strong signs of the oxygen-hydrogen bond present in water. M3 is only sensitive to signals from within a few millimetres of the surface, ruling out the possibility that this water signal originated from the deep crevasses probed by LCROSS. The surface water consists of a thin film of H2O (and OH) molecules clinging to the lunar dirt.

Whether or not enough water is present to reap the potential benefits, how to tap into the possible resource remains to be seen. However, when there’s a will, there’s a way. It’s apparent that the celestial body to which we are most closely located warrants a closer look before setting our sights on the more unreachable (at least for now) regions of our solar system.

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