The speed with which new discoveries are made in the field of science is dizzying. We do not wake up one day without knowing any other advance and, often, we realize the amount of discoveries that are made. This is the case of the find that we want to talk about in today's article. Its about discovery of water on the moon.
It is the first time that scientists find data that definitively show the existence of water on the moon. This is a very important discovery as it could mean that future lunar expeditions could have a source of water that would undoubtedly make it easier to "explore and even stay on the moon," as officials of the Propulsion Laboratory said. to Jet of NASA in the statement that was made about the discovery.
Is there really water on the moon?
Water on the moon it was detected in the colder and darker regions of the poles both north and south , of the moon. It is found in scattered patches in the north and is concentrated in permanently shaded craters in the south, where temperatures never rise above -157 degrees Celsius.
Previously, some researchers proved the existence of water on the moon, specifically in the depths of the lunar surface. There was also evidence of water ice on the surface of the lunar south pole, however. There was no definitive proof until now.
The discovery of this water on the moon was made by a team of scientists led by Shuai Li, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the University of Hawaii and an article was written about it, which was published on August 20 in the magazine Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The team analyzed the data obtained by NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) aboard Chandrayaan-1, an Indian spacecraft that explored the moon in 2008 and 2009. The data showed three chemical "signatures" demonstrating the presence of water ice, as opposed to liquid water or water vapor.
"The results seem very convincing"
Said Ian Crawford, professor of planetary science and astrobiology at Birkbeck, University of London. Crawford was not involved in the investigation. Not only can this discovery help improve lunar missions, the discovery also improves the way water is extracted from the moon.
Philip Metzger, a planetary scientist at the University of Florida Central, he told NBC News MACH:
"It will make missions to Mars more affordable for SpaceX and for NASA", "It will also help to establish the cislunar economy",
He said in reference to the commercial companies that unite the Moon and the Earth. The idea that the interior of the Moon is full of water raises interesting questions about the formation of the satellite, since scientists estimate that it was created by the debris left when an object the size of Mars hit the Earth in the early stages of the history of Solar system .
Experts had assumed that the interior of the moon was dry because it seemed unlikely that the hydrogen that was necessary for the formation of water could have survived the heat of that impact. How then could there be water on the moon?
"The growing evidence of water inside the Moon suggests that the water survived in some way, or arrived shortly after the impact of asteroids or comets before the Moon had fully solidified"
Shuai Li, a scientist at the University of Hawaii and a collaborator of Milliken. Scientists estimate that the deposits are large and the water could be extracted.
In the year 1994, the experimental probe Clementine already gave the first clues about the possibility that there was ice water under important polar craters such as Shackleton, Haworth or Svedrup. What was originally a hypothesis was finally confirmed, 4 years later, by the lunar Prospector.
The existence of water on other planets besides the Earth is always good news. Mercury also found water, however, the water detected there seems to be more pure and more abundant than the one located on the moon.
Surely, to this day, we are not able either to understand the scope of this discovery or all the advantages that we can draw from having finally found conclusive evidence that there is water on the moon.
What do you think? What advantages do you think we could get from being able to locate water on the moon? And on Mercury? Tell us your thoughts on this interesting topic, we will be happy to read you!