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On August 31, 2018, a Boeing 747 opened a large hatch located next to its tail in mid-flight about 13,000 meters above sea level. At that distance from the surface it is already possible to observe space with a clarity impossible for ground-based telescopes due to disturbances in the atmosphere. After more than two years of analysis, the observations made that day are published today and unequivocally confirm that there is water on the Moon. Another study shows that water can accumulate in about 40,000 square kilometers of the satellite, an area similar to that of Extremadura. Both works underscore the importance of these findings for future manned satellite missions, which will begin in just four years with the mission. Sagebrush from NASA, which will mark another milestone: the arrival of the first woman on the surface of the Moon.
For years it was thought that there was water on the moon. According to the latest calculations, the satellite’s north pole could store 600 million tons of this essential resource for humans, both for drinking and for producing rocket fuel. The south pole could also store a lot of ice water. The problem is that the observations are not conclusive: the reflected infrared light does not allow us to know whether it is water (H2O) or hydroxyl groups (OH).
Now, NASA’s telescope mounted aboard the Boeing 747 has captured infrared light at a wavelength that only water can emit. There is no other material on the Moon that can give that same signal, explain those responsible for the work, which is placed today in Nature Astronomy.
The SOFIA telescope was aimed at Clavius crater, a hole over 200 kilometers in diameter near the satellite’s south pole. Those responsible for the discovery, led by Casey Honniball, a planetologist at the University of Hawaii and a NASA researcher, point out that the abundance of water in this crater is about 200 micrograms for every gram of lunar soil.
Even on Earth, gold from mines is about 100 times lower than that estimated for water on the Moon
A microgram is one millionth of a gram. This means that to extract a liter of water on the moon, future astronauts would have to collect five tons of soil, explains Jorge Pla-García, a researcher at the Madrid Astrobiology Center. “Although it may seem small, we must remember that it costs a million dollars to bring a kilo of material to the moon. It should be borne in mind that this estimate is a lower limit and is also a preliminary estimate, but even in this case the exploitation of water at these quantities would be advantageous for future missions because bringing it from Earth would be much more expensive ”, salient points. Even on Earth, gold from commercially interesting mines has a concentration about 100 times lower than that now estimated for water on the Moon, the scientist points out.
According to the study, the water in Clavius crater is not found in large areas of pure ice, but in small deposits accumulated between the earth or trapped in crystals produced by the impacts of small asteroids. “The probe Chandrayaan-1 has already detected frozen water at the lunar poles in areas not illuminated by the sun. We now present conclusive evidence that there are water molecules even in the illuminated areas, “explains Casey Honniball, co-author of the study. His team thinks that the water molecules were formed by impacting small meteorites and reacting with OH to form l The molecules would be trapped in those crystals and would have to be dissolved to remove it, he warns.
A second study published today in the same journal focuses on so-called “cold traps” – places where sunlight never reaches. By definition, a cold trap is a point on the moon where the temperature is below 163 degrees below zero, explains Paul Hayne, a researcher at the University of Colorado. Some of these traps are the coldest places in the solar system, with temperatures around 243 below zero. “In these deposits the frozen water behaves like a rock and remains stable for billions of years,” he points out.
Hayne’s team analyzed data from NASA’s LRO lunar probe to calculate how many cold traps there are on the moon. This time, they not only looked at large deposits, but also estimated smaller ones. Their calculations show that cold deposits on the Moon occupy about 40,000 square kilometers. The most abundant are the deposits of a few centimeters – micro traps – which accumulate around the two poles of the Moon.
“We don’t know how thick the ice is in these deposits, but if we make a reasonable estimate we see that the micro-traps alone could hold about 1 billion liters of water,” explains Hayne, whose study highlights the importance of these deposits. may have in front of human “future missions” on the satellite.
Water on the Moon is exactly like water on Earth and could be drunk, says Hayne, although it should first be filtered, as it may contain mercury and other pollutants. “New technologies would be needed to extract this water. We can think of robotic tractors that smooth the surface and extract water from small tanks. This is something very different from having to extract ice from large craters in perpetual shadow and kilometers deep, “he points out.
NASA has announced that it plans to send astronauts to the moon’s south pole starting in 2024 and is considering plans for future lunar bases with large solar panels that will illuminate the interior of the shadowed craters and extract the water accumulated in them.
“This is great news,” says Didier Schmitt, coordinator of human exploration and robotics at the European Space Agency. The agency is collaborating with NASA and other countries to build a space station on the moon and plans to establish permanent bases on the surface. “In theory, the oxygen and hydrogen in water can be separated to make rocket fuel that could travel from the moon to Mars,” he explains. “But it is important not to get carried away by optimism and to keep in mind that there are still many intermediate steps to be taken before we can even begin to implement these plans,” he warns.
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