It turns out the LCROSS spacecraft's discovery of water ice at the Moon's South Pole was not the whole story.
Scientists now have detected huge amounts of ice deposits near the Moon's north pole as well, using data from a NASA radar aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft--and this time, it is much more ice.
NASA said in a statement that the Mini-SAR instrument is a lightweight, synthetic "aperture radar," discovered over 40 craters filled with water ice among one and 9 miles in diameter.
The agency estimates that there might be 1.3 trillion pounds (600 million metric tons) of water ice in those craters.And other recent water ice discoveries on the Moon, the latest one has implications for future manned Moon missions (assuming they ever happen yet again), or even extended Moon colonizations.
Scientists now have detected huge amounts of ice deposits near the Moon's north pole as well, using data from a NASA radar aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft--and this time, it is much more ice.
NASA said in a statement that the Mini-SAR instrument is a lightweight, synthetic "aperture radar," discovered over 40 craters filled with water ice among one and 9 miles in diameter.
The agency estimates that there might be 1.3 trillion pounds (600 million metric tons) of water ice in those craters.And other recent water ice discoveries on the Moon, the latest one has implications for future manned Moon missions (assuming they ever happen yet again), or even extended Moon colonizations.
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