LONDON: According to Nasa, there are oases of water-rich soil on Moon's surface that could sustain astronauts.
"In about a tonne of material ... you're talking 11-12 gallons of water that you could extract," the BBC quoted Anthony, Colaprete LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator, as saying.
A lunar probe last year revealed far more water than anyone had imagined. The researchers' analysis suggests some areas of lunar regolith, or soil, must contain as much as 5% by weight of water-ice .
"And it's in the form of water-ice grains. That's good news because water-ice is very much a friendly resource to work with. You don't have to warm it very much; you just have to bring it up to room temperature to pull it out of the dirt real easy," said Anthony Colaprete, from the US space agency's Ames research centre.
The water-ice is not uniformly distributed across the southern pole but is held in pockets. Some of these oases are, like in Cabeus, to be found in shadows where LRO's Diviner instrument has sensed temperatures down to -244 °C. Under such conditions, ices will stay fixed for billions of years.
"This could facilitate future human and robotic explorers in their quest for understanding of the lunar ice, as well as its potential use as resource; because rather than having to brave the cold and dark conditions inside permanent shadow, they could land much more conventionally in areas where the sunlight is shining — at least for part of the year — and then dig a small distance below the surface and access the ice," said David Paige, Diviner's principal investigator . The study appears in Science magazine.
The Moon, at least at the bottom of a deep, dark cold crater near its south pole, seems to be wetter than the Sahara, the scientists said.
If astronauts were to visit this crater, they might be able to use eight wheelbarrows of soil to melt 10 to 13 gallons of water. The water, if purified, could be used for drinking, or broken apart into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel — to get home or travel to Mars.
The Sahara sands are 2 to 5% water, and the water is tightly bound to the minerals. In the lunar crater, which lies in perpetual darkness, the water is in the form of almost pure ice grains mixed in with the rest of the soil, and is easy to extract. The ice is about 5.6% of the mixture, and possibly as high as 8.5% of it, Colaprete said. "That is a large number, larger than I think anyone was anticipating."
The new research results increase the water estimate to about 40 gallons, and by estimating by amount of dirt excavated by the impact, calculated the concentration of water for the first time.
Several reports published in Science show some surprising findings, including a large amount of water in the form of ice, carbon monoxide, ammonia and the silvery metals.
Source: Times of india , 23-10-2010
"In about a tonne of material ... you're talking 11-12 gallons of water that you could extract," the BBC quoted Anthony, Colaprete LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator, as saying.
A lunar probe last year revealed far more water than anyone had imagined. The researchers' analysis suggests some areas of lunar regolith, or soil, must contain as much as 5% by weight of water-ice .
"And it's in the form of water-ice grains. That's good news because water-ice is very much a friendly resource to work with. You don't have to warm it very much; you just have to bring it up to room temperature to pull it out of the dirt real easy," said Anthony Colaprete, from the US space agency's Ames research centre.
The water-ice is not uniformly distributed across the southern pole but is held in pockets. Some of these oases are, like in Cabeus, to be found in shadows where LRO's Diviner instrument has sensed temperatures down to -244 °C. Under such conditions, ices will stay fixed for billions of years.
"This could facilitate future human and robotic explorers in their quest for understanding of the lunar ice, as well as its potential use as resource; because rather than having to brave the cold and dark conditions inside permanent shadow, they could land much more conventionally in areas where the sunlight is shining — at least for part of the year — and then dig a small distance below the surface and access the ice," said David Paige, Diviner's principal investigator . The study appears in Science magazine.
The Moon, at least at the bottom of a deep, dark cold crater near its south pole, seems to be wetter than the Sahara, the scientists said.
If astronauts were to visit this crater, they might be able to use eight wheelbarrows of soil to melt 10 to 13 gallons of water. The water, if purified, could be used for drinking, or broken apart into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel — to get home or travel to Mars.
The Sahara sands are 2 to 5% water, and the water is tightly bound to the minerals. In the lunar crater, which lies in perpetual darkness, the water is in the form of almost pure ice grains mixed in with the rest of the soil, and is easy to extract. The ice is about 5.6% of the mixture, and possibly as high as 8.5% of it, Colaprete said. "That is a large number, larger than I think anyone was anticipating."
The new research results increase the water estimate to about 40 gallons, and by estimating by amount of dirt excavated by the impact, calculated the concentration of water for the first time.
Several reports published in Science show some surprising findings, including a large amount of water in the form of ice, carbon monoxide, ammonia and the silvery metals.
Source: Times of india , 23-10-2010
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