vIndianz.com (3 Mar, 2010) — New Delhi: Scientists have said that there could be as much as 600 million metric tonnes of water ice in the dark craters near the moon’s north pole. The announcement on the breakthrough was made late Monday at the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Congress organised by the Houston-based Lunar and Planetary Institute and after scientists analysed data brought back by the Chandrayaan-1 moon mission.
India’s Chandrayaan-1 has discovered ice in the Moon’s craters, The Times of India reported.
The The discovery was made by a Nasa payload on board Chandrayaan-1 called Mini-Sar (miniature synthetic aperture radar), a lightweight instrument that weighs 10 kg. It found more than 40 craters with water ice, the size of the craters ranging between two and 15km in diameter.
Scientists say the discovery of water ice anywhere on the Moon is extremely important and the ice could be melted into drinking water or be separated into its components of oxygen and hydrogen to provide breathing air and rocket fuel for launching interplanetary missions from the moon.
In September 2009, Isro’s moon impact probe and the hyper spectral imaging camera (Hysi) along with Nasa’s moon minerology mapper announced the discovery of water molecules on the moon. But these were not large deposits. In contrast, the Mini-Sar is stated to found huge quantities of water ice.
“The new findings show that the moon is an even more interesting destination than people previously thought,” said Paul Spudis, principal investigator for the project and a scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Texas, US.
A tiny radar sensor, Mini-SAR, discovered the caches of frozen water.
Mini-SAR was created by the United States-based National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The sensor weighs less than 10 kg, six times lighter than an unabridged Oxford English Dictionary. Mini-SAR arrived at the moon aboard Chandrayaan-1, according to The Hindustan Times newspaper.
“These results certainly open new vistas towards establishing human colonies on the moon. More interesting results are awaited which will throw fresh light on geological features of the moon,” said S Satish, Isro’s chief spokesperson.
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