Large amounts of water discovered on the Moon
From Jean-Louis SANTINI (AFP) - 15 hours ago
WASHINGTON - NASA has discovered large quantities of frozen water near the South Pole of the Moon, the American Space Agency announced on Friday, confirming the plan to establish a moon base almost half a century after the mission. Apollo.
"We found water and not just a little, but significant amounts," said jubilant Anthony Colaprete, scientific manager of the LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) mission which made this progress possible.
"We are in heaven," he added at a press conference describing the discovery.
Michael Wargo, NASA lunar scientist, highlighted the prospects offered by this discovery.
"We are lifting the veil of the mysteries of our nearest neighbor and at the same time of the solar system," he said, noting that the Moon held "many secrets".
This discovery "advances our understanding" of the Moon and the solar system, he added.
It could also support the maintenance of the objective of the Constellation program to return the Americans to the Moon around 2020. The future of Constellation is however uncertain for budgetary reasons, a commission of experts created by President Barack Obama, has just returned a report offering different options for manned exploration.
NASA had precipitated a 2,3-ton projectile into a crater called Cabeus, followed closely by the LCROSS probe whose instruments successfully analyzed the materials in the plume of debris resulting from the impact that dug a crater from 20 to 30 meters.
"We found the equivalent of at least ten buckets of 7,5 liters of water each," said Anthony Colaprete, noting that these were only the first results.
"It's a bit like when you discover oil while drilling, when you find it in a place there is a greater chance of finding it also not very far," Peter also told AFP. Schultz, professor of geology at Brown University, member of the scientific team.
Another of these researchers, Gregory Deloy, of the University of California (West), deemed this discovery "extraordinary" and "major" during the press conference.
“It's exhilarating (because) it shows a new image of the Moon,” he added. "It is no longer the Moon of the Apollo program but our moon", launched this scientist in reference to the fact that the analyzes made of samples of the soil and lunar rocks brought back by the twelve Apollo astronauts during six missions (1969 -1972) had not revealed the presence of water. Science then concluded that the Moon was dry.
This view changed after a NASA probe in the early 2000s detected significant hydrogen fumes at the lunar poles, which could result in the presence of ice.
This discovery had led NASA to choose the South Pole for the LCROSS mission, on the assumption that the extremely cold craters there could contain large amounts of ice. A hypothesis now confirmed.
Three more recent observations announced in September revealed the presence of water particles on the entire Moon from data collected in 2008 by a NASA instrument transported on the Indian satellite Chandrayyan-1.
Anthony Colaprete also said Friday that "the concentration and distribution of water and other substances require further analysis of the data collected" some of which indicate the presence of "intriguing substances".
"Lunar craters have collected and preserved materials for several billion years", noted this researcher.
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