The forecast for a hot shower on the Moon’s surface could be shaped by two recent studies published in the journal Nature Astronomy. The first indicates the presence of water for the first time on the illuminated side of the Moon. The second indicates the existence of small crevices that the sunlight does not reach, filled with ice, on the surface of our satellite. These observations reveal the presence of small water reservoirs on the surface of our satellite, which could be a great advantage for future manned missions on the Moon , in human settlements that, in fact, NASA plans to establish there.
Water on the illuminated face of the Moon
The NASA Stratospheric Infrared Astronomy Observatory (SOFIA) has confirmed, for the first time, the presence of water on the surface of the Moon illuminated by the Sun. SOFIA has detected water molecules (H2O) in the Clavius crater, one of the largest craters visible from Earth, located in the southern hemisphere of the Moon. Previous observations of the Moon’s surface detected some form of hydrogen, but were unable to distinguish between water and its close chemical relative, hydroxyl (OH). Data from this location reveal water in concentrations of 100 to 412 parts per million, roughly equivalent to a 35 centiliter bottle of water, trapped in a cubic meter of soil scattered across the lunar surface.
But it is a small amount of water. To get an idea, the Sahara desert has 100 times the amount of water that SOFIA detected on the lunar soil. Despite the small amounts, the discovery raises new questions about how water is created and how it persists on the harsh lunar surface without an atmosphere. It remains to be determined whether the water SOFIA found is easily accessible for use as a resource.
Ice water inside ‘cold traps’
For its part, the second investigation, led by the University of Colorado Boulder, reveals for the first time the presence of small patches of ice, “sometimes not much larger than a penny in size,” according to a press release from the university itself. college.
These shallow ice deposits, moreover, could be much more common than scientists suspected. In the words of Paul Hayne, assistant professor at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics: “If you can imagine yourself standing on the surface of the moon near one of its poles, you would see shadows everywhere,” he explains.
Researchers have called these dark regions, of various shapes and sizes, ‘small cold traps’, which would cover an area of more than 24,000 square kilometers. The conclusion of the study is that all these regions harbor water in the form of ice, as if they were lunar ice cubes.
But it would be totally black ice, not like the one that reflects the solar rays on the surface of the Earth: the most amazing thing is that inside these ‘cold traps’, there is literally no escape , since they have not seen a single ray of sunlight for billions of years. “The temperatures are so low in the cold traps that the ice would behave like a rock. If the water gets in there, it won’t go anywhere for a billion years, ”Hayne continues. According to the statement, the water in these lunar ‘ice buckets’ is around –149 ºC.
Can we use this water?
The finding – in addition to being exciting in itself for providing crucial information about the characteristics of our natural satellite – could prove promising for future lunar residents, an invaluable resource for the missions we send there in the near future. “If we’re right, the water will be more accessible for drinking, for rocket fuel … all the water NASA needs,” says Hayne.
The presence of signs of these strange ice-filled regions is not new to scientists, but their existence has been estimated before. But the University of Colorado Boulder team wanted to know, not just if they were actually there, but how much space they took up. So the group pulled data from observations of the Moon from NASA instruments, and then used mathematical tools to recreate what its surface would look like on a very small scale. The answer: the Moon is something like a golf ball.
Specifically, the scientists investigated the Shackleton crater, near the south pole of the Moon. This huge impact crater is several kilometers deep. Due to the position of the Moon in relation to the Sun, much of the interior of the crater is permanently in shadow.
According to the team’s calculations, the moon’s north and south poles could contain a large number of bulges capable of harboring the aforementioned ‘cold traps’, many of them only one centimeter wide. Furthermore, previous estimates put the extent of these regions at about half of what Hayne’s team’s data now reveal.
“The only way to know if there really is water there is to explore and dig.”
For now, as with most such discoveries, be cautious: Hayne points out that his team cannot prove that these shadows actually contain ice packs: “The only way to do that would be to go there in person or with vehicles. exploration and excavation “.
However, the results are promising, and future missions could shed even more light (literally) on the Moon’s water resources . For starters, in 2022, Hayne will lead a NASA mission called the Lunar Compact Infrared Imaging System (L-CIRiS) , which will take heat-sensitive panoramic images of the moon’s surface near the south pole.
Más información y fuentes:
C. I. Honniball et al. Molecular water detected on the sunlit Moon by SOFIA, Nature Astronomy (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-01222-x
Micro cold traps on the Moon, Nature Astronomy (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1198-9 , www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1198-9
