Patches of frost around moon’s north and south poles could provide a source of water for humans, say astronomers

Astronomers have found patches of frost scattered around the moon’s north and south poles which could one day provide a source of water for human visitors.

The scientists spotted the telltale signature of frozen water in infrared measurements taken by Nasa’s moon mineralogy mapper, an instrument that flew on India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission to the moon a decade ago.

The freshly-analysed data show that water ice lurks on the ground in a number of spots near the moon’s polar regions that are permanently in shade and so sheltered from the heat of the sun’s rays.

Most of the ice was found near the moon’s south pole around a cluster of craters named after scientists and explorers, including Haworth, Shoemaker, Sverdrup and Shackleton. In the north, the patches of ice appeared to be more isolated, according to Shuai Li at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology in Honolulu.

Follow-up measurements of the ice patches found that they tended to form where the surface temperature never crept above -163C, but temperature alone was not enough to guarantee frozen water: only 3.5% of the shadowy areas the scientists checked for water revealed notable signs of ice.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The green and cyan dots indicate the presence of water ice. Photograph: PNAS

The images are the first “direct and definitive evidence” of water ice that is exposed on the surface of the moon, according to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “These ice deposits might be utilised as an in-situ resource in future exploration of the moon,” the authors write.

The Indian Space Agency launched its Chandrayaan-1 mission to the moon in 2008 and was swiftly rewarded with evidence of frozen water on the lunar surface a year later. Rather than sheets of ice on the surface, the water is thought to exist as water molecules bound to grains of moon dust.

Soon after the Indian feat, Nasa crashed a spacecraft into the 100km-wide Cabeus crater which is in permanent shade on the moon’s south pole. The intentional act of lunar violence threw up a plume of debris from which scientists were able to confirm the presence of water on the moon.</s>Frozen water has been discovered for the first time hiding in shadowy craters on the surface of the moon.

Scientists found ice in the lunar north and south poles, which they said could one day provide human visitors with a source of water that would allow for longer stays on the astronomical body.

Most of the ice was found in craters that never reach temperatures higher than -250F (-157C) because sunlight cannot reach them.

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The discovery was made using data from Nasa’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument, which was on board the Indian Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in 2008.

Previous research has revealed possible signs of surface ice in the moon’s south pole, but scientists think those measurements could have been the result of unusually reflective soil.

“We found direct and definitive evidence for surface-exposed water ice in the lunar polar regions,” wrote the researchers in their new paper, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The abundance and distribution of ice on the moon are distinct from those on other airless bodies in the inner solar system such as Mercury and Ceres, which may be associated with the unique formation and evolution process of our moon.

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“These ice deposits might be utilised as an in situ resource in future exploration of the moon.”

The research team, led by Dr Shuai Li from the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, used a sophisticated method called near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy to make their discovery.

This allowed them to measure light scattering through a material and confirm the presence of ice in a way that has never previously been possible.

If there is enough ice on the moon’s surface, the scientists suggested it would be possible for future expeditions to harvest this precious resource and possibly stay there for long periods.

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This would likely be easier to access than the water that has previously been detected buried beneath the lunar surface.

Understanding the distribution of ice and how it got there has been identified by Nasa as a key step in their long-term ambitions to return and explore our planet’s closest neighbour.

The Chinese and European space agencies have also proposed future moon missions, including the potential construction of a moonbase.

Johann-Dietrich Wörner, the director general of European Space Agency, even described the idea of a “Moon Village”, which could serve as a launching pad for future missions to Mars.</s>Image copyright NASA Image caption The distribution of surface water-ice at the Moon's south pole (left) and north pole (right)

Scientists say they have definitive evidence for water-ice on the surface of the Moon.

The ice deposits are found at both the north and south poles, and are likely to be ancient in origin.

The result comes from an instrument on India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, which explored the Moon between 2008 and 2009.

Details of the work have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The distribution of the ice deposits is patchy. At the lunar south pole, most of the ice is concentrated in craters. At the northern pole, the water-ice is both more sparse and more widely spread.

The Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument aboard Chandrayaan identified three specific signatures of water-ice at the lunar surface.

M3 not only picked up the reflective properties one would expect from ice, but was able to directly measure the distinctive way its molecules absorb infrared light. This meant that it could differentiate between liquid water and vapour and solid ice.

Image copyright JAXA/NHK Image caption This picture of the Moon's south polar region was captured by Japan's Kaguya spacecraft

Temperatures on the Moon can reach a searing 100C in daytime, which doesn't provide the best conditions for the survival of surface ice.

But because the Moon is tilted on its axis by about 1.54 degrees, there are places at the lunar poles that never see daylight.

Scientists estimate that temperatures in permanently shadowed craters at the Moon's poles do not rise above -157C (-250F). This would create an environment where deposits of water-ice could remain stable for long periods.

The result supports previous indirect detections of surface ice at the Moon's south pole. However, those results could potentially be explained by other phenomena - such as unusually reflective lunar soil.

If there's enough ice sitting at the surface - within the top few millimetres - the water might be accessible as a resource for future human missions to the Moon.

It could potentially be turned into drinking water for the occupants of a lunar base, or "split" into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel. The split oxygen could also be used by astronauts for breathing.

Surface water ice has also been found on other Solar System bodies, such as at the north pole of the planet Mercury and on the dwarf planet Ceres.

Follow Paul on Twitter.</s>A team of scientists led by Shuai Li of the University of Hawaii and Brown University, and including Richard Elphic from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, claim to have found water ice on the moon. The information used to reach this conclusion comes from an instrument on India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission, which explored the moon between 2008 and 2009, as reported by Space. The ice deposits rest on the north and south poles of the moon and are believed to be ancient in origin.

The conclusion was based on more than the ability to detect the reflective properties that would be expected from ice. The ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) and other scientists were able to use data harvested by M3, which was created by NASA JPL in Pasadena, California, traveling aboard the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft to reach their findings. The collected data was used to map how molecules absorbed infrared light.

Infrared light differentiates between solid ice, liquid water, or vapor. The vast majority of the ice exists in areas that are in the shadows of craters located on or around each pole where the temperature is not known to rise above minus 250 Fahrenheit, per the BBC.

Scientists with NASA stated that they hope to have an opportunity to study how the ice got there and how it interacts with the greater lunar environment. While being careful to not overestimate what this discovery could possibly mean for future lunar missions or the potential for colonization, there was an underlying enthusiasm for new possibilities in their study published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

“We found direct and definitive evidence for surface-exposed water ice in the lunar polar regions. The abundance and distribution of ice on the Moon are distinct from those on other airless bodies in the inner solar system such as Mercury and Ceres, which may be associated with the unique formation and evolution process of our Moon. These ice deposits might be utilized as an in situ resource in future exploration of the Moon.”

The water ice deposits are more abundant on the south pole where it mostly lies in the bottoms of craters in a heavily concentrated format. The northern pole has a more dispersed arrangement of water ice formations that are thinly scattered about a variety of shadowed areas. It is believed this could be due to subtle changes in the moon’s axis of rotation which could have been caused by meteorite impacts over the course of eons. They further estimate that only about 3.5 percent of the lunar “cold traps” contain surface water ice.

Within the study lies a discussion of the potential uses of the water, which current findings indicates lies only a couple of millimeters below the lunar surface soil. While water has been previously detected below the surface of the moon, it has been considered potentially too difficult to harvest. This newly discovered surface water ice should prove almost immediately accessible. As such, they believe that this would not only provide a somewhat realistic potential for extended manned excursions to the moon but also provide information mankind has never previously been privy to studying.</s>The image shows the distribution of surface ice at the Moon’s south pole (left) and north pole (right), detected by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument. Blue represents the ice locations, plotted over an image of the lunar surface, where the gray scale corresponds to surface temperature (darker representing colder areas and lighter shades indicating warmer zones). The ice is concentrated at the darkest and coldest locations, in the shadows of craters. This is the first time scientists have directly observed definitive evidence of water ice on the Moon’s surface.

M3, aboard the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, launched in 2008 by the Indian Space Research Organization, was uniquely equipped to confirm the presence of solid ice on the Moon.</s>The NASA announcement is the first direct evidence of frozen water pooled on the surface of the lunar orb. Previous lunar reconnaissance missions touted the possibility of water existing below the rugged surface of the Moon. Scientists are now certain frozen pools of icy water exist in the most sun-starved craters on the Moon’s polar regions. NASA said in a statement: “At the southern pole, most of the ice is concentrated at lunar craters, while the northern pole’s ice is more widely, but sparsely spread.”

The incredible finding was made by a team of researchers led by Shuai Li of the University of Hawaii and Brown University. The discovery was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences with the aid of Richard Elphic from NASA’s Ames Research Center, California. In the published paper, the scientists wrote: “We found direct and indirect evidence for surface-exposed water ice in the lunar pole regions. “The abundance and distribution of ice on the Moon are distinct from those on other airless bodies in the inner solar system such as Mercury and Ceres, which may be associated with the unique formation and evolution process of our Moon.

“These ice deposits might be utilised as an in situ resource in future exploration of the Moon. The researchers came across the ice caps after analysing data collected by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument. The M3 tool identified three distinct signatures around the Moon’s pole, confirming the presence of ice. You can see these icy deposits in the image above – the blue colour around the Moon’s poles represent the discovered ice caps.

NASA’s M3 was blasted off to the Moon onboard the Indian Space Research Organisation Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in 2008. The machine collected and analysed data based on the reflective properties of ice but also examined the way ice molecule absorb infrared light. This allowed NASA to differentiate between the different forms of liquid water, vapour and ice around the poles. NASA said: “Most of the newfound water ice lies in the shadows of craters near the poles, where the warmest temperatures never reach above -250 degrees Fahrenheit.

Previous observations of the Moon only four indirect signs of surface water around the Moon’s south pole but these were never full confirmed. NASA’s scientists claimed the results could have been easily fooled by the reflective surfaces of the Moon’s soil. The USA-based space agency is now positive the presence of water – even in minuscule amounts – could be a promising start for fauna lunar colony missions.</s>A team of scientists has confirmed that water ice exists in the darkest and coldest parts of the moon's poles.

The team has "directly observed definitive evidence" of ice deposits on the surface of the moon using a scientific instrument that measures how molecules absorb light.

Led by Shuai Li of the University of Hawaii and Brown University, and including Richard Elphic from NASA's Ames Research Center, the team used data from NASA's "Moon Mineralogy Mapper" (M3) to spot the ice.

M3 is an instrument developed by NASA and placed aboard the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, which was launched in 2008 by the Indian Space Research Organisation.

The data it collected did not only examine the reflective properties of water, but could distinguish between how the organisation of the molecules absorbed infrared light, revealing whether it was looking at liquid water, water vapour or solid ice.

The majority of the newly discovered water ice was found to be in the shadows of craters near the poles, where the temperature never reaches above -150 C (-250 F).

The poles of the moon, like the poles of the Earth, are much colder than its equatorial regions, but because of the moon's very small tilt, sunlight never reaches these regions at all.

Previous observations had suggested there could be surface ice at the moon's south pole, but scientists could not confirm whether these observations had merely picked up unusually reflective soil.

Now, the researchers believe that if there is enough ice sitting at the surface of the moon - within the top few millimetres - the water could be accessible as a resource for expeditions.

The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.</s>NASA officials say they have definitive proof of water on the surface of the moon.

Ice deposits that are probably ancient were discovered thanks to data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper.

Most of the water is located in shadows of craters that are near the poles, according to officials.

Researchers will now focus on the ice and determine how it got there.

Findings on this matter are published in the August edition of the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.</s>TAMPA (AFP) - Scientists said on Tuesday (Aug 21) they have confirmed the existence of ice on the Moon's surface for the first time, a discovery that could one day help humans survive there.

Signs of ice on the Moon have been reported by scientists for years, but previous observations could have been explained by other phenomena, such as unusually reflective lunar soil, the study authors said.

"This is the first time scientists have definitive evidence for the presence of water ice on the surface," lead author Shuai Li of the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology told AFP.

The ice mainly lies in the frigid shadows of craters at the lunar poles, and was detected using instruments that flew on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, launched in 2008 by the Indian Space Research Organisation.

Using data from Nasa's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument, researchers identified three chemical signatures "that definitively prove there is water ice at the surface of the Moon," said a Nasa statement.

The polar regions where the ice lies are "super cold," Li said, noting that the warmest temperatures never reach above minus 250 deg F (minus 157 deg C).

It is unclear exactly how much ice exists on the surface, since the instruments could only detect ice within a few millimeters of the Moon's surface, he said.

But Nasa said if there is enough of the ice, "water would possibly be accessible as a resource for future expeditions to explore and even stay on the Moon."

The US space agency is aiming to return humans to the Moon in the coming years for the first time since the storied Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

Li said the best way to find out more about the Moon's ice and how to tap into it as a resource would be to send a robotic rover to explore the lunar poles.

The full study was published in Monday's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.</s>In the darkest and coldest parts of its polar regions, a team of scientists has directly observed definitive evidence of water ice on the Moon’s surface. These ice deposits are patchily distributed and could possibly be ancient. At the southern pole, most of the ice is concentrated at lunar craters, while the northern pole’s ice is more widely, but sparsely spread.

A team of scientists, led by Shuai Li of the University of Hawaii and Brown University and including Richard Elphic from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, used data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument to identify three specific signatures that definitively prove there is water ice at the surface of the Moon.

M3, aboard the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, launched in 2008 by the Indian Space Research Organization, was uniquely equipped to confirm the presence of solid ice on the Moon. It collected data that not only picked up the reflective properties we’d expect from ice, but was able to directly measure the distinctive way its molecules absorb infrared light, so it can differentiate between liquid water or vapor and solid ice.

Most of the newfound water ice lies in the shadows of craters near the poles, where the warmest temperatures never reach above -250 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of the very small tilt of the Moon’s rotation axis, sunlight never reaches these regions.

Previous observations indirectly found possible signs of surface ice at the lunar south pole, but these could have been explained by other phenomena, such as unusually reflective lunar soil.

With enough ice sitting at the surface – within the top few millimeters – water would possibly be accessible as a resource for future expeditions to explore and even stay on the Moon, and potentially easier to access than the water detected beneath the Moon’s surface.

Learning more about this ice, how it got there, and how it interacts with the larger lunar environment will be a key mission focus for NASA and commercial partners, as we endeavor to return to and explore our closest neighbor, the Moon.

The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on August 20, 2018.

Publication: Shuai Li, et al., “Direct evidence of surface exposed water ice in the lunar polar regions,” PNAS, 2018; doi:10.1073/pnas.1802345115
Ice is confirmed at the Moon's poles.