Chandrayaan-1 finds water on the moon’s surface

UPDATE:

Chandrayaan-1 has found evidence of large quantities of water on the lunar surface, reports have said.The Times has reported that water is still being formed on the surface of the moon.

Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, the mission’s project director at the Indian Space Research Organisation in Bangalore, was quoted as saying, “It’s very satisfying. This was one of the main objectives of Chandrayaan-1, to find evidence of water on the Moon.”

NASA will hold a press conference on September 24, 2009 to reveal new findings.

Carle Pieters of Brown University in Rhode Island, was quoted as saying, “When we say ‘water on the moon,’ we are not talking about lakes, oceans or even puddles.”

The lunar scientist explained that water on the moon means molecules of water and hydroxyl (hydrogen and oxygen) that interact with molecules of rock and dust specifically in the top millimetres of the moon’s surface.

Rumors are flying about that Chandrayaan-1, that was aborted abruptly, on August 30, 2009, has found water on the lunar surface.The rumors stem from the announcement that ISRO and NASA will reveal a “major discovery” made by Chandrayaan-1, on September 24, 2009.

The discovery will be revealed at a media briefing at the Nasa headquarters in Washington DC, on September 24, 2009 at 2.00 AM, that will feature lunar scientist Carle Pieters from Brown University.

SpaceRef.com has reported that the media briefing will focus on a paper appearing in the next issue of Science magazine that carries results from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.

Chandrayaan-1 was in lunar orbit for nearly an year, from the time it was launched on October 22, 2008.

Meanwhile, reports say that NASA’s own Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that has begun mapping the surface of the moon has sent back data that suggests shaded craters in the moon’s polar regions may contain stores of hydrogen and ice.

Chandrayaan-1 was built by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in association with partners such as HAL.

It carried 11 payloads on its mission, five from India and six from International agencies. The payloads from the international agencies included three from the European Space Agency (ESA) , one from the Bulgarian Aerospace Agency (BSA), and two from NASA.

The main mission objectives of Chandrayaan-1 were:

1. Conduct high resolution 3D mapping of the topographic features of the moon surface, and distribution of various elements  and minerals on the moon
2. Conduct high-resolution chemical and mineralogical imaging of the permanently shadowed north and south polar regions
3. Search for sub-surface water ice at the poles
4. Map the height variation of the features of the surface of the moon along the surface track of the Chandrayaan-1’s orbit
5. Conduct stereographic coverage of the lunar surface with 5m resolution
6. Detect outgassing of radioactive elements like Uranium, Thorium, Lead-210, Radon-222

During its sojourn in the lunar orbit, Chandrayaan-1 sent 3-D images of the moon and the first X-ray signature from the Moon.