{"id":696,"date":"2009-09-24T23:51:59","date_gmt":"2009-09-24T18:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mohamediqbalp.wordpress.com\/2009\/09\/24\/water-on-moon\/"},"modified":"2009-09-24T23:51:59","modified_gmt":"2009-09-24T18:21:59","slug":"water-on-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/venusimportexport.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2009\/09\/24\/water-on-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Water on Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
24\/09\/2009<\/span><\/div>\n

Chandrayaan-1 spotted water on moon : Report<\/h1>\n

Bangalore\/Chennai:
\nIn a sensational scientific discovery, India’s maiden lunar mission
\nChandrayaan-1 has found evidence of water on the moon. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n

\"Chandrayaan-1<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“The moon has distinct signatures of water,” top American scientist Carle Pieters confirmed Thursday.<\/p>\n

“The
\nevidence of water molecules on the surface of the moon was found by the
\nmoon mineralogy mapper (M3) of the US-based National Aeronautics and
\nSpace Administration (NASA) on board Chandrayaan-1,” M3 principal
\ninvestigator Carle Pieters said in a paper published in the journal
\nScience.<\/p>\n

M3 was one of the 11 scientific instruments on board the
\nlunar spacecraft that was launched Oct 22, 2008 by the Indian Space
\nResearch Organisation (ISRO). The mission was aborted Aug 30 after
\nChandrayaan-1 lost radio contact with Earth.<\/p>\n

Crediting ISRO for
\nits role in the findings, Pieters said: “If it were not for them
\n(ISRO), we would not have been able to make this discovery.”<\/p>\n

ISRO
\nchairman G. Madhavan Nair had told the media Wednesday that he could
\nnot yet confirm the presence of water on the moon, but “before the end
\nof this week, we will let you know”.<\/p>\n

However, confirming the
\nfinding and terming it a major discovery, Pieters said the discovery of
\nwater on the lunar surface would reinvigorate studies of the moon and
\npotentially change thinking on how it originated.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

\"Chandrayaan-1<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“Hydroxyl,
\na molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom, were
\ndiscovered across the entire surface of the Earth’s nearest celestial
\nneighbour,” claimed Pieters, a planetary geologist at Brown University
\nin Rhode Island.<\/p>\n

Though the abundance of the hydroxyl molecules
\nare not precisely known, about 1,000 parts per million could be in the
\nlunar soil, the paper noted.<\/p>\n

“Harvesting one ton of the top layer
\nof the moon’s surface will yield as much as 32 ounces (907 grams) of
\nwater,” scientists involved in the discovery said.<\/p>\n

As lead author of the M3 findings, Pieters said more evidence of water was found in the moon’s high latitudes.<\/p>\n

“It greatly expands current thinking about where water in any form was presumed to be located,” she pointed out.<\/p>\n

The findings give rise to interesting new questions about where the water molecules come from and where they may be going.<\/p>\n

Scientists
\nhave speculated that water molecules may migrate from non-polar regions
\nof the moon to the poles, where they are stored as ice in ultra-frigid
\npockets of craters that never receive sunlight.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

\"Chandrayaan-1<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“If
\nthe water molecules are as mobile as we think they are — even a
\nfraction of them — they provide a mechanism for getting water to those
\npermanently shadowed craters. This opens a whole new avenue (of lunar
\nresearch), but we have to understand the physics of it to utilise it,”
\nPieters noted. <\/p>\n

The NASA payload found water molecules and
\nhydroxyl at diverse areas of the sunlit region of the moon’s surface,
\nbut the water signature appeared stronger at the moon’s higher
\nlatitudes. <\/p>\n

Two NASA spacecrafts — the Visual and Infrared
\nMapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on the Cassini spacecraft and the
\nHigh-Resolution Infrared Imaging Spectrometer on the EPOXI spacecraft
\nalso confirmed the data on the discovery of water by M3. <\/p>\n

“This
\nis a very, very important finding… If somehow water was found on the
\nmoon, you could use that water right out there. You could extract it,”
\nsaid Amitabha Ghosh, space scientist at NASA. <\/p>\n

“Right now, we don’t know what temperature it is, and whether there is a cost effective way of extracting it,” he added. <\/p>\n

Source: IANS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

24\/09\/2009 Chandrayaan-1 spotted water on moon : Report Bangalore\/Chennai: In a sensational scientific discovery, India’s maiden lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 has found evidence of water on the moon. “The moon has distinct signatures of water,” top American scientist Carle Pieters confirmed Thursday. “The evidence of water molecules on the surface of the moon was found by…
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