Moon Water Discovery Hints at Mystery Source Deep Underground

Scientists have detected evidence of water from the moon's interior in Bullialdus Crater.

It was detected by NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 probe


www.space.com...

Evidence of water spotted on the moon's surface by a sharp-eyed spacecraft likely originated from an unknown source deep in the lunar interior, scientists say.

The find — made by NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 probe — marks the first detection of such "magmatic water" from lunar orbit and confirms analyses performed recently on moon rocks brought to Earth by Apollo

I always thought the moon was a dry desolate place but scientists now think there might be vast amounts of water on the moon.

Scientists now think many polar craters on the moon harbor large amounts of water ice — so much, in fact, that firms such as the Shackleton Energy Company and Moon Express aim to mine this ice and turn it into rocket propellant to help fuel humanity's expansion out into the solar system.

It's all pretty fascinating and I wonder if there might be vast amounts of water under the ground on Mars..

I am 32 years old... since I was a kid every 2 years all I hear is "Water on mars!" "WATER on the MOON!"

I mean how many freaking times do they have to discover it again and again and again?

I remember seeing a video feed from a satellite showing a geyser shooting on the moon
But cant find it again.. If anyone know it please reply the link to me

reply to post by goou111

Scientists now think many polar craters on the moon harbor large amounts of water ice — so much, in fact, that firms such as the Shackleton Energy Company and Moon Express aim to mine this ice and turn it into rocket propellant to help fuel humanity's expansion out into the solar system.

YAY!!! Let's mine the moon now and destroy it also......But we can make rocket propellant out of it!!

If we all got together as 1 species, we could figure all this stuff out without having to destroy each planet in the process! Mankind frustrates me sometimes.....

Originally posted by Alda1981
I am 32 years old... since I was a kid every 2 years all I hear is "Water on mars!" "WATER on the MOON!"

I mean how many freaking times do they have to discover it again and again and again?

I know, right? And how many times are we going to send rovers to Mars to "re-discover" the same crap over and and over.

How about they send rovers specifically to look for life? If they have sensors capable of detecting life, they can detect the water too. I'm tired of all these wasteful baby steps!

The moon could be Earth's gas station for future interplanetary missions, and I have no idea why we haven't been back since the Apollo days.

reply to post by Chrisfishenstein


It's the moon. It's desolate and ugly. They could pave the whole thing for I care, from what we know it's not like there is some kind of species living up there.

It's a giant rock...

It's been known for a while that there is ice on the Moon. The real question is, is there any liquid water underground?

Originally posted by MystikMushroom
reply to post by Chrisfishenstein

 

It's the moon. It's desolate and ugly. They could pave the whole thing for I care, from what we know it's not like there is some kind of species living up there.

It's a giant rock...

I think you forgot to mention.....PUT THERE FOR A REASON!!

That reason not being for humans to mine it......Or maybe it was....Who knows??

One idea is that all the bodies in our early solar system were bombarded with water containing objects, explaining how Earth got its water. Water would have likely been delivered to the moon in a similar process, so the question then becomes, how much of that water can it hang on to? Not much on the surface, obviously, with the exception of polar craters, but water in the pore spaces of underground rocks shouldn't be too surprising. Even if it was icy rocks that impacted the moon, the impacts could have liquified the water allowing it to flow underground. Earth too has lots of water underground, and since the crusts are made out of similar porous materials, why shouldn't the moon also have water underground?

Now, the state of the water, liquid versus ice, would depend on the thermal gradient of the moon's interior. Do we know what that gradient is? I don't think it's ever been measured, though we might be able to guess at it, using models.

Originally posted by Spacespider
I remember seeing a video feed from a satellite showing a geyser shooting on the moon
But cant find it again.. If anyone know it please reply the link to me

I never saw that from Earth's moon.

Were you thinking of Saturn's moon?

Cassini spacecraft captures Saturn moon geyser images

reply to post by Arbitrageur


No it was the moon I am 100% certain.
It looked like a puff of smoke shooting up and then gone

reply to post by Spacespider


I think you are talking about when they crashed an orbiter into a crater to stir up debris so they could study it? That happened a few years ago.

There was also a meteor that hit the Moon that made it into the news a few months ago?

Originally posted by Spacespider
No it was the moon I am 100% certain.
It looked like a puff of smoke shooting up and then gone

I'm not sure why you'd call something that looks like a puff of smoke a geyser?

You being 100% certain doesn't make me 100% certain. Since you can't find the video, I would think you would be less than 100% certain.

Originally posted by Blaine91555
reply to post by Spacespider

 

I think you are talking about when they crashed an orbiter into a crater to stir up debris so they could study it? That happened a few years ago.

That was a sort of puff of smoke, but the video I saw of it didn't show that: www.youtube.com...

Even the still imagery was unimpressive, as seen here in the lower left:

apod.nasa.gov...

If I didn't know it was supposed to look like a puff of smoke, I wouldn't say that's what it looks like. There are areas of similar color in the craters in the lower right, which are not supposed to be "puffs of smoke" or dust.

reply to post by Blaine91555


No it was a satellite cruising over the moon surface.. and a white plume appears for a brief second
I will go look for this video now.. again