Evidence of Internal Moon Water Found

universetoday.com ^ | August 27, 2013 | Jason Major on

[BenLurkin]

Scientists have detected magmatic water — water that originates from deep within the Moon’s interior — on the surface of the Moon. These findings represent the first such remote detection of this type of lunar water, and were arrived at using data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) carried aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter.

...

M3 (pronounced “M-cube”) fully imaged the large impact crater Bullialdus in 2009. “It’s within 25 degrees latitude of the equator and so not in a favorable location for the solar wind to produce significant surface water,” Klima explained. “The rocks in the central peak of the crater are of a type called norite that usually crystallizes when magma ascends but gets trapped underground instead of erupting at the surface as lava. Bullialdus crater is not the only location where this rock type is found, but the exposure of these rocks combined with a generally low regional water abundance enabled us to quantify the amount of internal water in these rocks.”

[Prospero]

Investigations of the central peaks (where the deepest material these kinds of craters excavate is deposited) of nearside equatorial crater Bullialdus (60.7 km, 20.7°S, 337.8°E) have detected rocks part;y composed of magmatic water of a kind collected by Apollo using the NASA M3 radar instrument aboard the ISRO orbiter Chandrayaan-1. LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) oblique observation M1099038207LR, spacecraft orbit 14313, August 8, 2012; overall resolution 2.4 meters, angle of incidence 48.8° with spacecraft and camera slewed 63.4° west of nadir, 73.65 kilometers over 20.96°S, 331.93°E [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Lunar Networks

[tomkat]

< for later >

[MeganC]

“Evidence of Internal Moon Water Found”

And surely some jerk in Los Angeles is right now scheming to steal it.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin.

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin, extra to APoD members.

Bullialdus crater -- Antelope Valley Astronomy Club

[cripplecreek]

Lotsa wata

[SunkenCiv]

;’)