The waning moon is seen at the sky over Frankfurt, Germany, early Monday, Oct. 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
By Marcia Dunn
The moon’s shadowed, frigid nooks and crannies may hold frozen water in more places and in larger quantities than previously suspected, good news for astronauts at future lunar bases who could tap into these resources for drinking and making rocket fuel, scientists reported Monday.
While previous observations have indicated millions of tons of ice in the permanently shadowed craters of the moon’s poles, a pair of studies in the journal Nature Astronomy take the availability of lunar surface water to a new level.
More than 15,400 square miles (40,000 square kilometers) of lunar terrain have the capability to trap water in the form of ice, according to a team led by the University of Colorado’s Paul Hayne. That’s 20% more area than previous estimates, he said.
These ice-rich areas are near the moon’s north and south poles. Temperatures are so low in these so-called cold traps — minus 261 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 163 degrees Celsius) — that they could hold onto the water for millions or even billions of years.
“We believe this will help expand the possible landing sites for future lunar missions seeking water, opening up real estate previously considered ‘off limits’ for being bone dry,” Hayne said in an email to The Associated Press.
Using data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the researchers identified cold traps as small as a few yards (meters) across and as wide as 18 miles (30 kilometers) and more and used computer models to get all the way down to micrometers in size.
“Since the little ones are too small to see from orbit, despite being vastly more numerous, we can’t yet identify ice inside them,” Hayne said. “Once we’re on the surface, we will do that experiment.”
For a second study, scientists used NASA's airborne infrared observatory Sofia to conclusively identify water molecules on the sunlit portions of the moon, just outside the polar regions. Most of these molecules are likely stored in the voids between moon dust and other particles or locked inside glassy volcanic material.
Scientists believe all this water on the moon came from comets, asteroids, interplanetary dust, solar wind, or even lunar volcanic eruptions. They'll have a better idea of the sources “if we can get down on the surface and analyze samples of the ice,” Hayne said.
The lead researcher, Casey Honniball, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said at a news conference that she wanted to make it clear the Sofia study had not found puddles on the moon. Rather, the identified hydrogen and oxygen molecules are so far apart, they are neither in liquid or solid form, she noted.
NASA is under White House direction to put astronauts back on the moon by 2024. The space agency wants its new Artemis moon-landing program to be sustainable, unlike the Apollo program a half-century ago.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
A new study shows that Americans feel record levels of stress amid inflation and global uncertainty about the war in Ukraine. Cheddar News speaks with Lynn Bufka of the American Psychological Association about how to best put your worries aside.
Colgate-Palmolive is shedding light on the little-known fact that oral health is integral to overall health. The consumer products company will commit $100 million over five years to transform the way the world thinks about and addresses oral health. Maria Ryan, Chief Clinical Officer at Colgate-Palmolive, discusses why oral health is so vital to our physical and mental well-being.
Scientists say they have found the sunken wreck of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance, more than a century after it was lost to the Antarctic ice.
Researchers say a large spider native to East Asia that proliferated in Georgia last year could spread to much of the East Coast. The Joro spider’s golden web took over yards all over north Georgia in 2021, unnerving some residents.
News of Russian forces taking control of a Ukrainian after artillery bombardment of a nuclear power plant raised concerns this week. Nuclear policy expert and Quincy Institute Distinguished Fellow Joe Cirincione joined Cheddar News to discuss the implications for a potential disaster. “I’m with the director general of the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency. He says that he is extremely concerned, and that this Russian attack is a severe risk and that Russia clearly violated the fundamental principle of preserving the integrity of nuclear power plants," Cirincione said.
Adam Battle, research assistant at University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, joins Cheddar News to discuss space junk heading to the moon and if more should be done to prevent space junk in the future.
UN and Ukrainian officials say no radiation was released from a Russian attack at Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant in Ukraine and firefighters have extinguished a blaze at the facility..
Under the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), corn-based ethanol has been mixed into gasoline sold at pumps in the U.S. since 2005, when a policy was enacted aimed at reducing emissions. Corn-based ethanol had been thought to be a relatively greener energy source compared to other biofuels, but now, a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports it may be actually worse for the climate than straight gasoline. Tyler Lark, an assistant scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Sustainability, joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell and discussed the pushback against the study. "Essentially when you need to produce more corn to meet the demand for use as ethanol as fuel, farmers respond and they switch more crops like soybeans and wheat into corn," Lark said. "They also bring more land into production, so things that used to be pasture grassland, and both those activities are associated with increased greenhouse gas emissions."
Caroline Hickman, lecturer at University of Bath and psychosocial researcher on climate change, joins Cheddar News to discuss climate change's impact on mental health.
