WASHINGTON (AFP) – A "significant amount"
of frozen water has been found on the moon, the US space agency
said Friday heralding agiant
leap forward in space exploration and boosting
hopes of a permanent lunar base.
Preliminary data from a dramatic experiment on the moon "indicates
the mission successfully uncovered water in a permanently shadowed
lunar crater," NASA said in a statement.
"The discovery opens a new chapter in our understanding of the
moon," it added, as ecstatic scientists celebrated the landmark
discovery.
"Yes indeed we found water and we did not find only a little bit
but a significant amount," said Anthony Colaprete, project
scientist and principal investigator for the 79-million-dollar
LCROSS mission.
The data was found after NASA sent two spacecraft crashing into
thelunar surface last month in a
dramatic experiment to probe Earth's nearest neighbor for
water.
One rocket slammed into the Cabeus crater, near the lunar southern
pole, at around 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) per hour.
Moon holds key to solar system's secrets
The rocket was followed four minutes later by a spacecraft equipped
with cameras to record the impact which sent a huge plume of
material billowing up from the bottom of the crater, untouched by
sunlight for billions of years.
"In the 20 to 30 meter crater we found maybe about a dozen, at
least, two-gallon buckets of water. This is an initial result,"
Colaprete told reporters.
"We are ecstatic," he added in a statement.
"Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high
angle vapor plume and the ejecta curtain created by the
LCROSS Centaur impact.
"The concentration and distribution of water and other substances
requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds
water," Colaprete said.
Scientists had previously theorized that, except for the
possibility of ice at the bottom of craters, the moon was totally
dry.
Finding water on Earth's natural satellite is a major
breakthrough in space
exploration.
"It's very exciting, it is painting a new image of the moon," said
Gregory Deloy, from the University of California hailing it as "an
extraordinary discovery."
He theorized that "one of the possible source of water is a comet."
"We're unlocking the mysteries of our nearest neighbor and, by
extension, the solar system," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar
scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington.
"The full understanding of the LCROSS data may take some time. The
data is that rich," Colaprete cautioned.
"Along with the water in Cabeus, there are hints of other
intriguing substances. The permanently shadowed regions of the moon
are truly cold traps, collecting and preserving material over
billions of years."
Only 12 men, all Americans, have ever walked on the moon, and the
last to set foot there were in 1972, at the end of the Apollo
missions.
But NASA's
ambitious plans to put US astronauts back on the moon by 2020 to
establish manned lunar bases for further exploration to Mars under
the Constellation project are increasingly in doubt.
NASA's budget is currently too small to pay for Constellation's
Orion capsule, a more advanced and spacious version of the Apollo
lunar module, as well as the Ares I and Ares V launchers needed to
put the craft in orbit.
A key review panel appointed by President Barack Obama said
existing budgets are not large enough to fund a return mission
before 2020.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091113/ts_afp/sciencespaceusmoon
pls find 嫦娥 nxt 