LUNAR WATER AN INDIAN FIND.

NASA tool is not the only one behind the discovery LUNAR WATER

THE PATHBREAKING discovery of water on the moon by Chandrayaan- 1 is very much an Indian success, scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation ( ISRO) said on Friday.

A number of instruments on board the spacecraft, and not just the US- built Moon Mineralogy Mapper ( M3), made the finding, they said at a press meet in Bangalore.

The announcement followed

claims that M3 had played the key role in the discovery.

ISRO chairman Madhavan Nair said the first instrument to detect water was the Moon Impact Probe ( MIP), which bore the image of the Indian tricolour and crashed into the moon soon after Chandrayaan went into orbit.

" While descending towards the lunar surface from Chandrayaan, the MIP sent strong signals of water," Nair said. " Scientists initially thought it was some sort of contamination. Anyway, they were reluctant to talk about it before a scientific publication." The 35- kg MIP spun down towards the moon from the spacecraft, 100 km above the lunar equator and moved towards the south pole. It carried a mass spectrometer along with a video camera and radar altimeter.

The spectrometer converts atoms or molecules into ions and then separates them according to their mass- tocharge ratio. The idea was to measure the constituents of the tenuous lunar atmosphere during the descent.

But during its 25- minute descent, it found a substance with the molecular weight of 18.

" The mass 18 corresponds to nothing other than water," Nair said. " And the concentration of these molecules increased as the MIP moved towards the pole." ISRO's Space Research Laboratory in Thiruvananthapuram is now studying the data for recalibration.

" When we get the final data we will release it," Nair said.

The primary objectives of the Chandrayaan- 1 mission were simultaneous chemical, mineralogical and topographic mapping of the lunar surface at high resolution. It also studied magnetic, gravitational and radiation environments of the moon. To meet these ends, it carried a number of other instruments that contributed to the quest for water. C HANDRAYAAN- 1 payloads used a broad spectrum of tools. Visible light produced photographs, infrared helped analyse mineral composition, X- rays checked their chemical nature, gamma rays probed deep into the surface and radio waves went even deeper, said J. N. Goswami, the principal investigator of Chandrayaan- 1.

The Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument studied the topography of the moon's surface by precisely measuring the altitudes. " It has measured the depth of craters on north and south poles of the moon. They could be possible sources of ice," said ISRO Satellite Centre director T. K. Alex.

The Mini- Synthetic Aperture Radar also looked for water in the polar regions. The High- Energy X- ray Spectrometer ( HEX), which has been developed to look for a naturally occurring radioactive material called radon, also contributed. Radon is a volatile substance like water, and so can prove or disprove the theory that water vapourises in sunlight and so moves towards the colder regions of the moon.

The scientists said they were not yet done. The analysis of Chandrayaan- 1 data can lead to many more significant discoveries, which will be explained in a series of research papers.

" We have complimentary findings," said Alex. " Many more results are in the pipeline."

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