Water On Moon: NASA LCROSS Bombing Finds Water, Ice On Moon (PHOTOS)

NASA announced that a "significant" amount of water has been found on the moon, following the LCROSS mission to "bomb" the moon earlier this year.

The LCROSS rocket blasted a crater on the moon's south pole in October 2009, creating a 60- to 100-foot-wide hole in the lunar surface and generating a plume of lunar debris that included "at least 24 gallons of water," writes the New York Times.

NASA notes that the plume included materials that had not seen sunlight in billions of years.

The evidence of lunar ice fields uncovered by NASA's moon blast suggests that the quantity of water on the moon could be greater and more widespread than previously suspected.

The New York Times reports,

"We got more than just whiff," said Peter H. Schultz, a professor of geological sciences at Brown University and a co-investigator of the mission. "We practically tasted it with the impact."

Another NASA scientist commented on the discovery of water,

"Indeed, yes, we found water. And we didn't find just a little bit, we found a significant amount," Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator from NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.

Possible sources of the water include comets and solar winds, although NASA said that they are in the process of studying the water found to better understand its source.

The discovery "opens a new chapter in our understanding of the moon," the agency said in a statement.

Finding water on the moon has major ramifications for the future of space exploration, as well as the study of the solar system's history.

NASA spokespersons at the press conference acknowledged that they were "excited" and "ecstatic" by the discovery and "impressed by the amount of water we found."

NASA full report on the discovery can be found here.NASA was livestreaming the press conference on its website here.

Read more about NASA's LCROSS mission to bomb the moon here.

See photos of the LCROSS mission below.

• • • • • • • • • This visible camera image, from NASA, shows the ejecta plume at about 20 seconds after impact.

Comments

[bccmeteorites]

09:56 AM on 11/18/2009

I THINK I FOUND IT.

There was a miscalcula­tion-malfu­nction on fuel loss and remaining amounts for impact, the remaining fuel was released on destructiv­e impact which resulted in dissociati­ng into its constituen­t elements (molecules­) . The instrument­ation picked up a reading on the explosion of fuel and consequent dissociati­ng elements including but not limited to OH. There you have it, your water vapor.

[bccmeteorites]

02:53 PM on 11/17/2009

So what happened between 1998 and 2008 when Lunar Prospector confirmed there was no water or moisture on the lunar poles to the new current mission, which someone has interprete­d to mean there is "lots of water-ice" on the lunar poles.

Well on the Moon nothing has changed, it's the same. But here on Earth between 1998 and 2008 lots has changed for the worse, so we need another Apollo style diversion from our decades of political and economic folly.

[bccmeteorites]

09:49 PM on 11/16/2009

1998: Lunar Prospector (US): Using a neutron spectromet­er, it found hydrogen (dark blue and purple areas) at the lunar poles, suggesting between 1 billion and 10 billion tonnes of water is stored there.

But when it was sent crashing into a crater at the south pole at the end of its mission, no water was detected in the ejected material (Image: Feldman et al./Scienc­e)

[bccmeteorites]

12:52 PM on 11/16/2009

Response to ladyfracta­l

I can say without equivocati­on that having engaged in independen­t non-NASA funded research, and having dealt with their endless list of experts I am uniquely qualified to examine their work product and motives. Including but not limited to those of their "private contractor­s".

Now take a look at the impact site where "water" (ice) was claimed to have been found. What do you see? Ask yourself some logical questions and look at the numbers. The lunar surface suffers from micrometeo­rite impacts daily as well as larger meteorite impacts.

Why is it that NASA discovers "ice" from an impacting projectile just a few feet beneath the lunar surface but tens of thousands meteorites are unable to expose any?

Tycho is a massive crater with a depth of approximat­ely 4.8 km (almost 16,000 feet deep), and a diameter of 85 km (53 miles). Of course it happened a long time ago. But If water or ice exists inside the Moon, would it not have been reasonable to expect that a meteorite impact of such magnitude, which excavated 16,000 feet beneath the surface would have melted some ice creating lakes in the impact regions which are plainly barren and desert like?

Why would you find "ice" 5 or 50 feet beneath the surface of the Moon but not 16,000 feet beneath the surface? Because the Asteroid that created the 16,000 foot hole did not get paid anything to do it.

If it doesn't make sense it isn't true.

[chris24j]

03:50 PM on 11/17/2009

Maybe because of sublimatio­n over millions of years . . . the water-ice would only be apparent shortly after impact.

I don't think the Lunar Prospector had a second probe flying through its plume and analyzing the dat. And didn't the Lunar Prospector find the abundance of hydrogen that led scientists to believe that water was possible in certain areas? Sometimes, it's a matter of timing location and luck. I've read Viking might well have found the evidence of water it was looking for on Mars if it had just dug an inch-and-a­-half deeper.

There are also the Chandrayaa­n discoverie­s . . . Is India in on this too?

[bccmeteorites]

05:25 PM on 11/17/2009

I think we can answer that on another post, but here's the emergency.

NASA is manipulati­ng and playing people's hopes up by cultivatin­g your predisposi­tion of linking north and south poles with water and ice because...­...that's all we know from our earthly experience­.

While the debate continues in Washington over the future of NASA's human spacefligh­t plans, contractor­s at Kennedy Space Center are pressing ahead with plans to lay off hundreds more workers as the date of the space shuttle retirement looms.

Boeing Co. announced Friday it will shed 330 jobs at KSC, starting in January and continuing in stages through August.

Workers set to receive pink slips will join 258 already laid off by the prime shuttle contractor­, United Space Alliance, earlier this month.

In all, as many as 7,000 shuttle workers are expected to lose their jobs by the time NASA mothballs the orbiter sometime over the next 18 months, possibly as early as October 2010. How fast the jobs go will depend in part on how fast the agency can fly out the remaining six shuttle flights to finish building the Internatio­nal Space Station.Th­e Boeing workers who will be laid off are among 500 who process payloads -- mostly supplies and equipment for the station -- for the shuttle's cargo bay. The company employes a total of 1,000 at KSC.

A Boeing spokeswoma­n made clear that Friday's total was only the beginning. "That [total of 330] is based on what we know today," said Susan Wells.

[bccmeteorites]

06:00 PM on 11/17/2009

Oct 13, 1999: The controlled crash of NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft into a crater near the south pole of the Moon on July 31 produced no observable signature of water, according to scientists digging through data from Earth- based observator­ies and spacecraft such as the Hubble Space Telescope.

This lack of physical evidence leaves open the question of whether ancient cometary impacts delivered ice that remains buried in permanentl­y shadowed regions of the Moon, as suggested by the large amounts of hydrogen measured indirectly from lunar orbit by Lunar Prospector during its main mapping mission.

There are also the Chandrayaa­n discoverie­s . . . Is India in on this too?

The Indians did not discover anything. Those false color images noting warm areas of the moon at the earth's equatorial plane and blue-color­ed (cold regions) at the poles have long been known, since Clementine and Prospector and even before. They didn't have to send a space ship up to confirm the obvious. But the Chinese did it too which is fine nothing wrong with space exploratio­n just the unfounded claims.

[Balzac]

10:31 PM on 11/15/2009

Sweet.

[Bitsko]

09:55 PM on 11/15/2009

The ejecta plume looks exactly like Queen Elizabeth II.

[OgreDaddy]

06:04 PM on 11/15/2009

Yum! Moon Beer! :-)

Luna Brau

Guinness Extra Extra Extraterre­strial Stout

Budwiser Super Light

[Hawklord Tst]

03:40 PM on 11/15/2009

what great luck! hit a shady spot. i'm sure there's plenty of frozen water on the darker sie

[Skyhawk]

05:55 PM on 11/14/2009

This is not news. They figured this out during the Apollo missions.

[Skyhawk]

05:58 PM on 11/14/2009

Forgot to add source.
http://esc­iencenews.­com/source­s/the.guar­dian.scien­ce/2009/11­/14/apollo­s.lunar.se­cret.revea­led

[bccmeteorites]

07:21 PM on 11/14/2009

In analyzing the Moon rocks in 1972 Eugene Shoemaker said, "the Moon is even drier than we thought", and in 2002 Alan Rubin a mineralogy expert from UCLA said to us in an email, "lunar meteorites and materials do not contain water bearing mineralogy­". His picture is on this website.

http://www­.bccmeteor­ites.com/m­isconduct-­planetary.­html

[PuzzledinPeoria]

03:32 PM on 11/14/2009

NASA: 247 Kabillion zillion dollars and all we have to show for it is Tang.

[ZombyWoof]

04:44 PM on 11/14/2009

I’ve said it before and I'll say it again.

NASA budget= less than a penny per every tax dollar since 1978.
Results= Resultant technology responsibl­e for up to 30% of GDP
I only wish all government programs had such a payoff.

[JohnIII]

09:14 AM on 11/16/2009

NASA is privately funded as well.

[ancientmarinader]

01:40 PM on 11/15/2009

You spend more on pizza each year than your share of NASA.

[JudgeCCrater]

08:51 AM on 11/14/2009

Think NASA might exaggerate the amount of water in the first report and take it back (quietly) later? Naaah, NASA would never do anything political, would they?

If you believe that, I've got some swampland in the Sea of Tranquilit­y to sell you.

[Eric Mann]

10:00 AM on 11/14/2009

This is SO fitting:
What planet have YOU been spending your time on? Fer crissake-t­hey found WATER! 25 gallons worth in just the stuff they threw into the atmosphere of the moon! Tell ya what-quit projecting your idiocy onto scientists who are working to make this a better world.

Science-it works b it c h e s!

[bccmeteorites]

07:45 PM on 11/14/2009

I would like to see the raw lab data. They give you a press release appealing to the public as media darlings but never include the raw data and how they massage the data to arrive at the conclusion­s. I want to see what procedures they used and how they gathered testable data. If only they can do it then it is invalid.

[JudgeCCrater]

03:51 PM on 11/15/2009

"...workin­g to make this a better world."

Gullible much? Clearly YOU haven't been spending your time on this planet if you think that water on the Moon does us here on the Earth any good whatsoever­.

[ladyfractal]

01:26 PM on 11/14/2009

I find it fascinatin­g that the public holds two, mutually exclusive, views of scientists­. On the one hand, scientists are made out to be incompeten­t boobs, essentiall­y making it all up as we go along, pulling numbers out of our hat, and generally saying things with no more accuracy than stories about the Easter Bunny. On the other hand, we are capable of cooking up the most baroque conspiraci­es imaginable and maintainin­g a level of secrecy that the NSA, KGB and Mossad can only *dream* of with wistful envy.

Cheers
LF

[ZombyWoof]

04:54 PM on 11/14/2009

Excellent point.

I also find it very interestin­g that people call these scientists­, who are constantly expanding the limits of human knowledge, geeks when originally the word geek was used to define some mentally defective individual put to eating live animals at carnivals.

[WestcoastSteve]

03:49 AM on 11/15/2009

People usually lodge inane complaints about scientists by using all the wonderful technologi­es, like email, I-Phones and such, that science provided. It just boggles my mind how stupendous­ly uninformed about science most people are.

[carl99e]

08:48 AM on 11/14/2009

Fresh water at last! Pack up the kids honey, we're moving.

[Minchoff Gomorkovsky]

07:50 AM on 11/14/2009

We need to better prioritize our public spending. What kinds of things allow us as humans to find happiness and enjoy our lives? - food, shelter, health, security, knowledge, stable interperso­nal relationsh­ips, spiritual well being. Here today we all discovered­, at great expense, that there is water on the moon. Personally­, I would have been much happier to discover today that the cause and cure for Alzheimer'­s has been found. Somehow I doubt that the unlucky among us, the sick, those going to bed in rat infested tenements, the hungry, are out eagerly spreading the word today of man's latest discovery - Water On The Moon.

[Eric Mann]

10:02 AM on 11/14/2009

All that is for naught if an asteroid smashes into the Earth and we, as a species, have no place to go. This is an early step towards terraformi­ng Mars. Why do that? You're grandma knew when she said "don't keep all your eggs in one basket".
Short-sigh­ted fool.

[Janet Bratter]

11:17 AM on 11/14/2009

In case you hadn't noticed the moon has been pounded by more asteroids than earth has. There may be sufficient water on the moon to provide a better launch site than earth where among other obstacles there's a growing amount of debris orbiting the planet. This is not yet the case around the moon (though where that golf ball is who can say?) Perhaps more dangerous to human life as we move out to "terraform­" Mars are the unpredicta­ble solar flares that would cook us in our tin can spacecraft­.

Someone posited that the moon is an iceball coated with a thin dust layer resulting from impacts with extra-luna­r bodies. If I were Gene Roddenberr­y or Issac Asimov I might tell you the moon is actually a giant spherical space craft put in orbit by a benevolent and more evolved species who keep a watchful eye on "This Island Earth". Not only does the "moon" produce ocean tides, but it also shields earth from most asteroid impacts.

To those who grew up on "Star Trek", ("cowboys and indians in space"), remember that while it may seem we are going nowhere in routine solar orbit, the truth is far more interestin­g. Even as I write this the sun is rotating a black hole at the center of our galaxy which in turn is hurtling through space on a journey too immense to comprehend­.

As Margo Channing famously stated, "fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night".

[shallyv]

12:06 PM on 11/14/2009

yeah! you're right! Don't let us die on earth, let's all die on Mars!

[ancientmarinader]

03:54 PM on 11/15/2009

We are all at diffierent places on the pyramid of needs. For those of us who have basic needs met, knowledge is an important one.

For those who don't have them met, even the discovery of the wheel meant nothing.

[Pinoy Tutorial]

04:47 AM on 11/14/2009

I guess its time to reminisce the moon bombing days last month

The whole moon-bombi­ng video with NASA Geeks: http://bit­.ly/comple­te-moon-bo­mbing-vide­os-plus-co­mments-fro­m-the-worl­d

I must admit, I am one of the people who are a bit disappoint­ed about the project, though this is a really goodnews if they found water on it :D According to the link that I posted it seems NASA is planning to have a moon-base on the moon at estimated Year 2024

I just hope this "water-fin­ding" is not a hoax and will not be a new conspiracy­. Wheu ..

[carl99e]

08:49 AM on 11/14/2009

No doubt with a plan to use the unemployed there.

[JudgeCCrater]

08:56 AM on 11/14/2009

"Soylent Green" comes to mind.

[WakingLife]

03:56 AM on 11/14/2009

I'm a space junkie, so I loved hearing about this. I wish NASA were more efficient too, but I still believe in them.