Moon Water.If you've considered moving to the moon, leave the water bottles at home. In spring 1998, scientists were stunned stun tr.v. stunned, stun·ning, stuns 1. To daze or render senseless, by or as if by a blow. 2. To overwhelm or daze with a loud noise. 3. to discover that the moon harbored about 300 million metric tons (26 billion gallons) of frozen water buried in the moon's craters (see SW 5/11/98). After more data and analysis, they're now ecstatic to find the moon may hold 2,000 times that amount. "The more moon water, the greater the resource for future colonies," says Bill Feldman at Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) (previously known at various times as Site Y, Los Alamos Laboratory, and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National in New Mexico New Mexico, state in the SW United States. At its northwestern corner are the so-called Four Corners, where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah meet at right angles; New Mexico is also bordered by Oklahoma (NE), Texas (E, S), and Mexico (S). . Feldman investigates data from Lunar Prospector The Lunar Prospector mission was the third selected by NASA for full development and construction as part of the Discovery Program. At a cost of $62.8 million, the 19-month mission was designed for a low polar orbit investigation of the Moon, including mapping of surface , a spacecraft that has been orbiting the moon since January 1998. The moon's poles may contain as much as 6 billion metric tons of frozen water--enough water to fill a lake 9 meters deep and 32 kilometers wide. Feldman and his colleagues had assumed the ice was buffed in a scattered dusty frost mixed with moon soil. Now they think it may be concentrated in dirty chunks of ice buffed about 50 cm (19 in.) beneath the lunar soil Lunar soil is defined as that found on the surface of the Moon. Its properties can differ significantly from those of terrestrial soil. It is essentially devoid of moisture and air, two important components found in soil on Earth. . How did Prospector scope out the water without ever landing on the moon? Scientists equipped the spacecraft with a unique instrument called a neutron spectrometer spectrometer Device for detecting and analyzing wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, commonly used for molecular spectroscopy; more broadly, any of various instruments in which an emission (as of electromagnetic radiation or particles) is spread out according to some . Certain neutrons, or subatomic particles, with low energy signal the presence of hydrogen, which along with oxygen combines to make water ([H.sub.2]O). Prospector detected such low-energy neutrons near the lunar poles, a clear sign that water is present in some form. Could this spell future moon condos with swimming pools? |
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