Water on the Moon: NASA's Voyage with Chandrayaan in Exploring Moon's Surface

In 1962 when President Kennedy pledged to send an American to moon in ten years, no one knew of water on the moon, 238000 miles away from Earth. Now a collaboration between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization has for the first time provided indication of water on moon's surface.

If water is available on the moon, it can be used as a rocket fuel. Water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, and when water breaks down hydrogen and oxygen are released. Liquid hydrogen and oxygen are components of rocket fuel.

A WAC monochrome view of the 30-km crater Necho. The impact melt is concentrated outside the northeastern rim, approximate location of the NAC detailed views is indicated by arrow. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.

A potentially ice-rich crater was initially identified in the North Pole of the Moon by the Mini-RF sent out in India's space craft Chandrayaan-1. Chandrayaan was launched by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the equivalent of NASA of USA, in October 2008 and was operational until August 2009. The large volume of data collected by Chandrayaan are still being analyzed.

Lunar poles have permanently shadowed craters and it is difficult to take pictures of these dark craters. To study these craters, NASA made a cute light radar instrument called Mini RF, weighing only 6 pounds. Mini-RF is used like a flash light to probe shadowy areas to detect whether there is water-ice on the moon. The first one of these was sent on Chandrayaan-1 and the second on NASA Goddard Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The ice-rich crater identified by Chandrayaan was later confirmed by the second Mini-RF radar on board NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). These images have ten times better resolution than the images sent by Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. According to NASA, the second Mini-RF allowed them to see details of the crater's interior.

The origin of the moon is now commonly believed to be the result of a Mars-sized object that impacted the Earth 4.5 billion years ago. This impact put a large amount of material into Earth's orbit that ultimately compacted to form the moon. The lunar magma ocean that is thought to have formed at some point during the compacting process, began to cool. During this cooling, it is suggested that water either escaped or was preserved in the crystallizing minerals.

The discovery of water on the moon may be the first step towards a human settlement there and probably also a stop-over for astronaut's for further explorations.

More news and information on Chandrayaan-1.