* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Lunar water

Blobrana · L

Within about two weeks, a powerful missile will be shot into craters in the moon's poles to raise dust for determining whether there is water - in the form of ice - inside. If so, it could supply oxygen for breathing, water for drinking and hydrogen for fuel in a future lunar outpost in the next decade or two.

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Blobrana · L

The LRO and LCROSS missions are both collecting data to test the hypothesis that ices may be trapped in permanently shadowed craters near the lunar poles. How could ices survive on the Moon? We know that the surface of the Moon reaches very high temperatures during the day and it is exposed to the vacuum of space - neither condition is conducive to ice. However, since the Moon's spin axis is tilted only a very small amount, the floors of some craters near the poles never receive any sunlight. In these permanently shadowed regions the temperature hovers somewhere at or below 50 degrees Kelvin (or -370 degrees Fahrenheit). At those temperatures, any water molecules (from sources like ice-rich cometary impacts) that fall into such a crater will be permanently trapped.

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Blobrana · L

Debate rages over moon water
There have been raging debates over the years as to whether there is frozen water on the moon or not. Soon two NASA spacecraft, a lunar spycraft and a kamikaze probe, will help answer the question by peering into the permanent darkness of craters at the moon's south pole.
The new moon probes, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the LCROSS impactor, are set to blast off this week on NASA's first mission to the moon in more than a decade. Any ice they discover could not only be used to quench an astronaut's thirst, but also to help fuel rockets for adventures beyond the moon.

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Blobrana · L

When astronauts land on the Moon in the not too distant future, it's possible they will be visiting an outpost where they can pick up some fuel and a refreshing container of liquid.
That outpost won't be offering the 64-ounce Big Gulp soft drinks that you find at many of the convenience stores across the country, but it will be offering a critical commodity water.
Research conducted by material scientists may lead to the ability to extract water from the Moon and possibly Mars by shooting microwave beams into their surface, according to Bill Kaukler, an Associate Research Professor in the Center for Materials Research at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.

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