Thread: Chandrayaan-1 [ News and Discussion ]

n 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 the moon mineralogy mapper (M3) of the US-based National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on board Chandrayaan-1," M3 principal investigator Carle Pieters said in a paper published in the journal Science.

M3 was one of the 11 scientific instruments on board the lunar spacecraft that was launched Oct 22, 2008 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The mission was aborted Aug 30 after Chandrayaan-1 lost radio contact with Earth.

Crediting ISRO for its role in the findings, Pieters said: "If it were not for them (ISRO), we would not have been able to make this discovery."

ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair had told the media Wednesday that he could not yet confirm the presence of water on the moon, but "before the end of this week, we will let you know".

source : http://www.zeenews.com/news565896.html

First water, then vapour, now ice. India's Chandrayaan-1, in its most recent lunar mark, has discovered ice in the Moon's craters -- a finding that indicates the presence of as much as 600 million metric tonnes of water ice on the Moon's north pole.

The announcement on the breakthrough, with far-reaching consequences for space travel, was made late Monday at the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Congress organized by the Houston-based Lunar and Planetary Institute.

The discovery was made by a Nasa payload on board Chandrayaan-1 called Mini-Sar (miniature synthetic aperture radar), a lightweight instrument that weighs 10 kg. It found more than 40 craters with water ice, the size of the craters ranging between two and 15 kilometres in diameter.

Scientists say the discovery of water ice anywhere on the Moon is extremely important because it can serve as a natural resource for astronauts on future lunar landing missions. The ice could be melted into drinking water or be separated into its components of oxygen and hydrogen to provide breathing air and rocket fuel for launching interplanetary missions from the moon.

Though the primary role of Mini-Sar was to discover water ice, the other Nasa payload, the Moon Minerology Mapper, beat it, setting off speculation whether Spudis could be upset about this development. Both were on board Chandrayaan-1. Also, though Isro's Moon Impact Probe and Hysi were the first to detect the water molecules, even before the moon minerology mapper, Indian space scientists feel Nasa is claiming credit for India's achievement.

Chandrayaan finds ice on moon - India - The Times of India