Chandrayaan-I helps NASA find frozen water on moon
The Chandrayaan I spacecraft was carrying NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper(M3) instrument. Fruitful data has been collected regarding the presence of water on the lunar surface.
India’s Chandrayaan I spacecraft helped NASA confirm the presence of frozen water deposits. These were found in the darkest and coldest parts of the Moon.
Chandrayaan I was India’s first lunar mission. It was launched in 2008 the Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO). NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument, aboard the Chandrayaan 1 spacecraft, collected data that not only picked up the reflective properties of ice but was able to directly measure the distinctive way its molecules absorb infra-red light. This can differentiate between liquid water or vapour and solid ice. One of the objectives of Chandrayaan I is to design, develop, launch and orbit a spacecraft around the Moon.
Most of the newfound water ice lies in the shadows of craters near the poles. Sunlight never reaches these regions because of the very small tilt of the Moon’s rotation axis.
NASA said that with enough ice on the Moon’s surface – within the top few millimetres – water would possibly be accessible as a resource for future expeditions and even enable stay on the Moon.
The distribution of ice is patchy and is estimated to be ancient. In 2017, using data taken from M3, scientists had created the first global map of water in the Moon’s soil. A day after NASA unveiled its analysis of data collected from lunar orbit Chandrayaan I, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine revealed a huge fact. He said, “We know that there is hundreds of billions of tons of water ice on the surface of the moon.”
With these new developments, the concept of houses on the moon doesn’t seem too far-fetched. The data gathered M3 with the aid of the Chandrayaan I shall open new gates for research on the lunar surface.
