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India’s lunar mission finds evidence of water on the Moon

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R

Ripclawe

Banned
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article6846639.ece

Dreams of establishing a manned Moon base could become reality within two decades after India’s first lunar mission found evidence of large quantities of water on its surface.

Data from Chandrayaan-1 also suggests that water is still being formed on the Moon. Scientists said the breakthrough — to be announced by Nasa at a press conference today — would change the face of lunar exploration.

The discovery is a significant boost for India in its space race against China. Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, the mission’s project director at the Indian Space Research Organisation in Bangalore, said: “It’s very satisfying.”

The search for water was one of the mission’s main objectives, but it was a surprise nonetheless, scientists said.The unmanned craft was equipped with Nasa’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, designed specifically to search for water by picking up the electromagnetic radiation emitted by minerals. The M3 also made the unexpected discovery that water may still be forming on the surface of the Moon, according to scientists familiar with the mission.

“It’s very satisfying,” said Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, the project director of Chandrayaan-1 at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Bangalore. “This was one of the main objectives of Chandrayaan-1, to find evidence of water on the Moon,” he told The Times.

Dr Annadurai would not provide any further details before a news conference at Nasa today from Dr Carle Pieters, a planetary geologist of Brown University who oversaw the M3.

Dr Pieters has not spoken about her results so far and was not available for comment last night, according to colleagues at Brown University. But her results are expected to cause a sensation, and to set the agenda for lunar exploration in the next decade.

They will also provide a significant boost for India as it tries to catch up with China in what many see as a 21st-century space race. “This will create a considerable stir. It was wholly unexpected,” said one scientist also involved in Chandrayaan-1. “People thought that Chandrayaan was just lagging behind the rest but the science that’s coming out, it’s going to be agenda-setting.”

Scientists have long hoped that astronauts could be based on the Moon and use water found there to drink, extract oxygen to breathe and use hydrogen as fuel.

Several studies havesuggested that there could be ice in the craters around the Moon’s poles, but scientists have been unable to confirm the suspicions.

The M3, an imaging spectrometer, was designed to search for water by detecting the electromagnetic radiation given off by different minerals on and just below the surface of the Moon. Unlike previous lunar spectrometers, it was sensitive enough to detect the presence of small amounts of water.

M3 was one of two Nasa instruments among 11 pieces of equipment from around the world on Chandrayaan-1, which was launched into orbit around the Moon in October last year. ISRO lost control of Chandrayaan-1 last month, and aborted the mission ahead of schedule, but not before M3 and the other instruments had beamed data back to Earth.

Another lunar scientist familiar with the findings said: “This is the most exciting breakthrough in at least a decade. And it will probably change the face of lunar exploration for the next decade.”

Scientists are eagerly awaiting the results of two American unmanned lunar missions, which were both launched in June, that could also prove the existence of water on the Moon.

Early results from Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) recorded temperatures as low as -238C (minus 396.4F) in polar craters on the Moon, according to the journal Nature. That makes them the coldest recorded spots in the solar system, even colder than the surface of Pluto, and could mean that ice has been trapped for billions of years, the journal said. The LRO has also detected an abundance of hydrogen, thought to be a key indicator of ice, at the poles.

The other Nasa mission, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), is due to crash a probe into a polar crater on October 9 in the hope of sending up a plume of ice that can be examined by telescope.

“We are on the verge of a renaissance in our thinking about the poles of the Moon, including how water ice gets there,” Anthony Colaprete, principal investigator for LCROSS, said in Nature.
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A

Agnostic

but believes in Chael
I'm looking forward to the NASA probe that is going to crash into the moon to try and dig up ice in a couple weeks.

/fist bump to India.
 
T

Teknoman

Member
Why isnt this a headline on every other news site? I mean this seems like it would be a pretty important discovery.
 
B

Boonoo

Member
gdt5016 said:
The moon was first base.

We need to go ahead and finger space.
Click to expand...
carina_hst.jpg

Right on.
 
O

Orpheon

Banned
Definitely ground-breaking, how the heck did moisture on the Moon go unnoticed until now?

Given that there is a substantial volume of ice on the Moon, this would easily catapult plans for a lunar base.

TacticalFox88 said:
Fuck, the moon, when the fuck are we going to Mars?
Click to expand...
With our current propulsion systems, a trip to Mars (one-way) would take as long as 2-4 months, whereas a trip to the Moon would take only 3-5 days.

Until we find a faster means of transport, a manned mission to Mars is out of the question.
 
E

ElectricBlue187

Member
Orpheon said:
With our current propulsion systems, a trip to Mars (one-way) would take as long as 2-4 months, whereas a trip to the Moon would take only 3-5 days.

Until we find a faster means of transport, a manned mission to Mars is out of the question.
Click to expand...

it's not out of the question, we've been able to do it forever we need to just get it over with. Sure, it'll be expensive but nobody wants to go back to the moon, that's boring as hell.
 
T

timetokill

Banned
Orpheon said:
Definitely ground-breaking, how the heck did moisture on the Moon go unnoticed until now?

Given that there is a substantial volume of ice on the Moon, this would easily catapult plans for a lunar base.


With our current propulsion systems, a trip to Mars (one-way) would take as long as 2-4 months, whereas a trip to the Moon would take only 3-5 days.

Until we find a faster means of transport, a manned mission to Mars is out of the question.
Click to expand...


I think the bigger issue is that, at best, it would be a one-way trip. And if we wanted to be efficient at it, it would take about 9 months, right? I've seen the experiments saying 3 months, but..... I doubt we're going to transport the kind of fuel we need for a 2-4 month journey. Of course the decision comes down to fuel or food.


Edit: of course there are problems with this (would take longer than 9 months to return, based on orbits...)
I think an interesting course of action is:

- Start a lunar base, hopefully growing it into a small scientific colony and using the data from time on the moon to fill out information on living for long amounts of time on an extraterrestrial world.

- Send robots to Mars to start mining and processing for return-trip fuel.

- Send a manned mission to Mars, using the 9-month mission, have the guy stay for maybe a few hours for the most epic event in human history since the Moon landing, plant the flag and then use the return-trip fuel to get back home.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
More info, for those curious.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/09/nasa-expected-to-reveal-moon-mineral.html

Also http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1351
In another paper, previously unreleased 1999 flyby data from Cassini ("Detection of Adsorbed Water and Hydroxyl on the Moon", Roger N. Clark) shows hydroxyl concentrations on "the sunlit face of the Moon". Water was detected in concentrations as high as "10 to 1,000 parts per million" and according to the paper "Regardless of its origin, water is found on the lunar surface in areas previously thought to have been depleted in volatiles."

...

It would seem that NASA has been sitting on a lot of data confirming with regard to the Moon - in some cases, for years. Meanwhile, a lot of people are trying to downplay the importance of these findings in and around NASA at the same time it would seem that the Moon has been revealed as being much more useful than had been previously released publicly. NASA's Science Mission Directorate has some explaining to do.
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L

Lazy vs Crazy

Member
How sad is it that we haven't been to the moon in decades, and it's going to take us longer to get there again than it did the first time?
 
N

NotWii

Banned
Agnostic said:
I'm looking forward to the NASA probe that is going to crash into the moon to try and dig up ice in a couple weeks.
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And piss off the space aliens chilling inside the moon, it is hollow after all :p

But seriously, 'bombing' the moon is probably just to get rid of whatever secret base NASA had there that they don't want India or China to see.
 
A

Aselith

Member
Lazy vs Crazy said:
How sad is it that we haven't been to the moon in decades, and it's going to take us longer to get there again than it did the first time?
Click to expand...

There's really only one reason to go there right now and that's to say we've been there. Manned missions don't really contribute anything at this point that unmanned rovers can't (at least I don't think so. Correct me if I'm wrong.) We still do plenty of unmanned missions though.

It's just not cost-effective after the first go round with increasing automated tech. The Americans have already been to the moon. The only reason we're going back is to set up a habitat. Any other reason is wasteful.
 
T

Teknoman

Member
DrForester said:
If there's water, there's probably whales....

..if there's whales...
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OHHHHHHH....

We're whalers on the moon, we carry a harpoon! But there ain't no whales, so we tell tall tales, and sing our whaling tune!

Also Aqua Luna could be a pretty lucrative business to get into. Just think how many people buy Earth based bottled water.
 
M

Mar

Member
Teknoman said:
Also Aqua Luna could be a pretty lucrative business to get into. Just think how many people buy Earth based bottled water.
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How awesome would you feel drinking that shit? You'd be all like, fuck yeah, space water. Eat that all previous generations of humanity.
 
S

Sibylus

Banned
Mar_ said:
How awesome would you feel drinking that shit? You'd be all like, fuck yeah, space water. Eat that all previous generations of humanity.
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"I'm descended from three presidents and five generals!"
"Oh yeah? I've got moon water in my toilet."
 
S

speedpop

Has problems recognising girls
Interesting prospect. It might force a few hands to eventually think about mining the hydrogen on the Moon.
 
D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
Rentahamster: interesting...

Anasui Kishibe said:
Saturn please. Those awesome rings
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I just read an article about how they've figured out that the rings are two miles high in some places, though typically closer to 30 feet. Craziness.
 
P

Peronthious

Member
Agnostic said:
I'm looking forward to the NASA probe that is going to crash into the moon to try and dig up ice in a couple weeks.

/fist bump to India.
Click to expand...

It's hilarious looking at the first several unmanned lunar missions. A few that go for orbit..failed. A few try to land on the surface...failed. Then they make the goal to just slam something into the thing and what do you know, success!

Granted, the main objective was gathering data about the surface which some of the controlled impacted did well, but it's funny nonetheless.
 
D

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
Haven't they already found Water on the Moon? It feels like every year I read that once again someone has found water on the Moon or Mars.
 
O

Orpheon

Banned
Orpheon said:
Definitely ground-breaking, how the heck did moisture on the Moon go unnoticed until now?
Click to expand...
Agnostic said:
These are the articles you are looking for.

Link 1

Link 2
Click to expand...

O.k, here we go:

- Decade-old data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft revealed signs of hydroxyl molecules (OH-) near polar caps an in craters.
- Modern detection of the molecules involves analysing wavelengths of sunlight reflected off the Moon surface, light reflected by water and hydroxyl molecules
have a characteristic wavelength due to infra-red absorption.
- This light wavelength was first discovered by an instrument on the Indian lunar satellite Chandrayaan-1, seconded by NASA's Deep Impact probe which
confirmed the water-hydroxyl signature.
- The moisture in question is not absorbed by the soil, yet rather clinging to the surface of the soil at about 1mm deep.

Apparantly, the scientists analysing the data initially thought there was a problem with the apparatus on board the Chandrayaan - and there was heavy debate
as to the accuracy of the results - right before the conclusions were confirmed after Deep Impact sent back similar readings, and after realising that Cassini
detected similar patterns 10 years ago.
 
D

DY_nasty

NeoGAF's official "was this shooting justified" consultant
It'd be awesome if this inspired interest in the space program again. But to be honest, the only way I can see the US getting serious about going up again is if someone else actually threatens to one up us like the commies.
 
D

devilhawk

Member
Ford Prefect said:
Is it clear I read the thread title?
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Yes. That's why you wouldn't know it was a NASA instrument that discovered the findings. It was a collaboration with many countries, in fact.
 
O

Orpheon

Banned
To clarify, the discovery was made by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) on board the Indian lunar probe.

Locke562 said:
Hey, Hey! Welcome to Science, India.
Click to expand...
All presumptions aside, India has helped pioneer 'Science' well before it's definition by the rest of the world.

Rather, the term which would fit your line appropriately would be 'Modern Astronomy'.
 
E

expy

Banned
Some images from NASA's website.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/moonmars/features/moonm3-images.html

388840main_green-b-20090923-516.jpg

This image of the moon is from NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper on the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 mission. It is a three-color composite of reflected near-infrared radiation from the sun, and illustrates the extent to which different materials are mapped across the side of the moon that faces Earth.

Small amounts of water and hydroxyl (blue) were detected on the surface of the moon at various locations. This image illustrates their distribution at high latitudes toward the poles.

Blue shows the signature of water and hydroxyl molecules as seen by a highly diagnostic absorption of infrared light with a wavelength of three micrometers. Green shows the brightness of the surface as measured by reflected infrared radiation from the sun with a wavelength of 2.4 micrometers, and red shows an iron-bearing mineral called pyroxene, detected by absorption of 2.0-micrometer infrared light.

Image credit: ISRO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Brown Univ./USGS
Click to expand...
 
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