LCROSS Finds Water on the Moon

On October 9, NASA slammed its $79-million LCROSS space probe into the surface of the Moon, in a quest for discovering water-ice in the Cabeus Crater at the south pole. At the time, as the world watched this endeavor live, the impact crater and the ejection plume that the spent Centaurus rocket stage created as it impacted the lunar surface, just a few minutes before the space probe itself, were not that impressive, and many called the mission a failure. However, NASA officials refrained from making comments until the science results were in – and they are good.

“Indeed, yes, we found water. And we didn't find just a little bit, we found a significant amount,” Anthony Colaprete explains. He is the principal investigator of the LCROSS mission, as well as a project scientist for the spacecraft. Colaprete is based at the NASA Ames Research Center, in Moffett Field, California. “We see evidence for the water in two instruments. And that's what makes us really confident in our findings right now. I'm pretty impressed by the amount of water we saw in our little 20-meter crater,” he adds, quoted by Space.

The discovery does not imply that the Moon is a place teeming with water, but simply that it is wetter than first anticipated, and also wetter than the driest places on Earth. The good news is that, if water was found on a location, then chances are that other amounts could be available at nearby locations, or elsewhere on the Earth's satellite. The two LCROSS instruments found that about 100 kilograms of water were ejected from an impact crater just 20 meters across and an ejecta plume some 60 to 80 meters across.

“What's really exciting is we've only hit one spot. It's kind of like when you're drilling for oil. Once you find it one place, there's a greater chance you'll find more nearby,” LCROSS co-investigator Peter Schultz explains. The expert is also a professor of geological sciences at the Brown University. “This is ice that's potentially been there for billions of years,” the NASA Headquarter Associate Administrator at the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, Doug Cooke, adds.

Colaprete reveals that the lunar water “would be water you could drink, water like any other water. If you could clean it, it would be drinkable water.” It could be used for future lunar colonies, in order to produce most of its basic requirements, such as drinking water, oxygen for life support, and hydrogen fuel for rockets, rovers, and other robotic explorers. Data from the LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) instrument were picked up by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), as well as by a number of Earth- and orbit-based telescopes.