India’s lunar mission finds water on the moon

NEW DELHI: India’s maiden moon mission Chandrayaan-I has detected evidence of water across the lunar surface, scientists announced on Thursday.

The Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) has confirmed the existence of water on the moon by analysing the data collected from Chandrayaan-I, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported Thursday.

The M3, a NASA instrument onboard Chandrayaan-I, detected wavelengths of reflected light that would indicate a chemical bond between hydrogen and oxygen in materials on the thin layer of upper soil.

The finding ends a four-decade long speculation on whether there is water on moon.

Scientists first claimed that water existed on moon about 40 years ago after they analysed rock samples brought to Earth as souvenirs by Apollo astronauts.

But they had doubts about the findings as the boxes in which the moon rocks were brought to Earth had leaked, contaminating the samples with air from the atmosphere.

Scientists believe that the water could have been formed due to the interaction of oxygen present in rocks and soil on moon with hydrogen in the form of protons emitted by the sun as a result of nuclear fusion.

As these protons hit the moon, they break apart oxygen bonds in soil material, and where free oxygen and hydrogen are together, there’s a high chance that trace amounts of water will be formed, said Larry Taylor from the University of Tennessee, who was among the M3 team of scientists.

The M3 instrument analysed how sunlight reflected off the lunar surface to identify water particles in which scientists observed elements of chemical bonding alike water.

However, the instrument can only see the very uppermost layers of the lunar soil -- perhaps to a few centimetres below the surface.

They studied the light that is reflected in different wavelengths of different minerals, and used those differences to know what is present in the thin layer of upper soil.

According to the scientists, it was water, previously theorised but not proven to exist.

Taylor and other M3 team members believe their findings will be of particular significance as mankind continues to plan for a return to the moon.

The lunar maps created by M3 could provide mission planners with prime locations for extraction of water from the lunar soil.

The findings will be published in this week’s online edition of the Science Express journal. -- Bernama