Artist rendition of construction of the Moon.
Is there water on the Moon? NASA thinks so, and later today it will announce which private company has won the contract to send its water-hunting mobile robot, the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), to the south pole of the Moon.
Due to begin exploring the lunar surface in December 2022, VIPER’s duty will be to map exactly where water exists—as ice. If the long-term goals of NASA’s Artemis program is to succeed, knowing where the ice is will be critical; not for 2024’s first landing of the first people on the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, but for a subsequent Moon-base. It would also be terrifically helpful if water could be harvested from the Moon by a crew on the way to Mars. Not just for drinking, but for using to make rocket fuel. After all, there are no (other) gas stations in space.
So where is it? Whether it’s VIPER or a fleet or ‘Roomba’-sized rovers that go looking for water on the Moon, not even a robot wants to speculate.
Illustration of NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) on the surface of the ... [+]
Mapping the Moon is de rigueur at the moment. Just weeks after the first-ever map of the Moon’s geology was published came the first map of rockfalls on the Moon, which suggested that most displaced rocks are because of asteroid strikes. Now comes a comes a new “ice favorability index” map developed by planetary geologist Kevin Cannon at the University of Central Florida. It’s been published in the journal Icarus.
It covers the Moon’s South Pole—the destination of both VIPER and the Artemis-3 crewed mission to the lunar surface—and includes a 3D map of the terrain and all craters that may contain ice.
It’s argued that some of the craters in the this region of the Moon are so vast that they contain areas that are permanently in shadow. The paper also suggests that there may be water underneath the surface.
Ice Favorability Index (IFI) for the north pole (top) and south pole (bottom), from 80 to 90º ... [+]
“Despite being our closest neighbor, we still don’t know a lot about water on the Moon, especially how much there is beneath the surface,” said Cannon. “It’s important for us to consider the geologic processes that have gone on to better understand where we may find ice deposits and how to best get to them with the least amount of risk.”
In lieu of taking physical samples of these area of the Moon to study, the team created their model using data from satellite observations.
“The idea of mining the moon and asteroids isn’t science fiction anymore,” said UCF physics Professor and co-author Dan Britt. “There are teams around the world looking to find ways to make this happen and our work will help get us closer to making the idea a reality.”
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
