The Indian Chandrayaan-1 ("Moon vehicle") has on board a NASA mineralogy mapper which found small amounts of water closer to the poles, in higher lattitudes. The blue colour in the reflected near-infrared radiation picture represents water, the green the surface brightness and the red is pyroxene (rock-forming silicates containing iron).
Although it is not a lot of water, it is really exciting news which changes our views of moon fundamentally. Close on the heels of finding ice buried on Mars (exposed by impacts of meteorites), there are interesting implications for travel to Moon, Mars and beyond.
Saturday 3 October 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
