The presence of water ice on the Moon has long been subject to debate from scientists, but last year NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) discovered existence of water ice at the moon’s poles. However, a team of researchers now believe there could be much more water than previously suggested – and it could be located in craters formed by meteor strikes. There are some 12,000 shadowed craters on the Moon, which could store vast amounts of water, according to the new research published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The craters provide shade from the Sun, and at night temperatures can reach as low as -233 Celsius.
Experts from NASA conducted the research, and believe it could be key to putting humans back on the Moon permanently.
Water represents one of the key requirements for permanent colonisation of the Moon as a feedstock for fuel and energy generation, as well as drinking water.
Dana Hurley, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, said: ”This research is telling us that meteoroids are doing some of the work for us and transporting material from the coldest places to some of the boundary regions where astronauts can access it with a solar-powered rover.
“It’s also telling us that what we need to do is get on the surface of one of these regions and get some firsthand data about what’s happening.”
William M. Farrell, a plasma physicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said: ”We suspected there was water at the poles and learned for sure from LCROSS, but we now have evidence that there’s water at mid latitudes.
“We also have evidence that there’s water coming from micrometeoroid impacts, and we have measurements of frost. But the question is, how are all these water sources related?”
