Finding Water on the Moon
Superstitions and horror movies usually take center stage on Friday the 13th, but on this day in November 2009, water was the talk of the town, actually of the planet. Why?
On November 13th NASA announced an exciting development—confirmation of water on the moon. It may not sound quite as dramatic as a visit from Jason in a hockey mask, but finding water on the moon could open the door to thrilling opportunities for space exploration and have a very real affect on life on earth. How?
This is an artist's concept of a small lunar outpost. Someday, larger lunar outposts may serve as a backup for civilization in case of a global catastrophe, like an asteroid impact or a pandemic.
Credit: NASA
1. Water on the moon could make space travel more efficient
When a shuttle takes off for the moon, it contains everything that the astronauts need to complete their mission and return safely. Engineers have come up with some innovative ways to reduce and reuse things in space, such as recycling urine into drinking water. If the moon could supply water for the return trip—both for astronaut use and for creating rocket fuel, the shuttle could be lighter and have more room for other equipment.
In addition, the existence of water on the moon increases the likelihood that the moon will someday have an outpost for explorers. Human existence is largely dependent on water, and having a natural supply of it available for drinking, agriculture, fuel, and other uses made this idea much more feasible. Such an outpost would give astronauts a place to perform in-depth research, test equipment, and prepare for future missions to Mars or other objects.
Ice Core sample taken from drill.
Image courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA)
Photo by Lonnie Thompson, Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University. Cropping by Audrius Meskauskas.
2. It could reveal the story of the solar system
Much of the water on the moon is likely in the form of ice hidden deep in its shadow-covered craters, where the temperature doesn’t get above freezing. If core samples of the ice in these places could be extracted and studied, they could provide insight into the climate story of the moon and, since the moon and Earth are so intertwined, the Earth.
This technique is already being used in places like the polar caps of Antarctica. As water and snow freeze, they also freeze information about the current temperature, composition of the atmosphere, and even local events like forest fires and volcano eruptions. By studying the different layers of ice and snow from different times, scientists can reconstruct a history of the climate going back thousands and even hundreds of thousands of years.
LCROSS flight hardware in clean room at NASA Ames Research with Left to right Tony Colaprete, LCROSS Principal Investigator, Kimberly Ennico, Payload Scientist, Co-Investigator Science team. Dana Lynch, Optical Engineer on LCROSS team
Photo Credit: NASA Ames Research Center / Dominic Hart
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/images/content/208362main_big_ACD07-0073-165.JPG
3. It’s really cool
As the closest object to the Earth, the moon has inspired and intrigued people from all across the world. Mayan, Hebrew, and Tibetan calendars are based on the moon. Egyptians saw lunar eclipses as bad omens. People have long associated a full moon with insanity (or “lunacy”), insomnia, accident rates, and fertility. When Galileo Galilei turned a telescope to the moon for the first time in history, most people believed that the moon was a perfect, smooth sphere.
A lot has happened in the 400 years since Galileo first saw the cratered surface of the moon. From observations with crude telescopes to observations with multi-million dollar telescopes to first-hand accounts from Neil Armstrong and the others that have walked on the moon, it may seem that there is nothing else to learn from our nearest neighbor. However, we have barely scratched the surface. Read on to find out more about what the moon can teach us.
