# Water on the Moon



## Drachir (Nov 14, 2009)

Yippee.  There's water on the Moon.  Time to get started on that pipleline.  

SPACE.com -- It's Official: Water Found on the Moon


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## mosaix (Nov 14, 2009)

Thanks for this, Drachir. It's excellent news.


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## Dave (Nov 14, 2009)

I'll drink to that!


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## Sparrow (Nov 14, 2009)

Leave our Moon alone.

Water on the Earth...


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## Chinook (Nov 15, 2009)

Don't worry Sparrow:

The scientists' next big objective is to "stuff the water back into crater," as Colaprete put it, and determine when it arrived and where it came from. Future missions will collect dirt from the crater and bring it back to Earth for isotopic analysis. The material's isotopic make-up (the ratios of the different isotopes) would help them figure out the water's distribution, age and composition. By obtaining core samples like the ice cores collected by scientists in the Antarctic, it will be possible for scientists to closely study the climatic record of the moon and draw comparisons with the Earth's. 

It may even be possible to harness solar energy to power robots, landers, and other instruments that could carry out the analyses in situ, according to Peter H. Schultz, a professor of geological sciences at Brown University and a member of the LCROSS mission. To do this, astronauts would need to land a spacecraft in an area exposed to sunlight near the poles and deploy solar-powered instruments that could be robot- or human-operated. 

This is from www-dot-popularmechanics-dot-com/science/air_space/4336801-dot-html

(not allowed to post links yet.)

Something also mentioned in the article is that they've found "Hydroxyl".



> (Further confirmation was provided by the emission of hydroxyl, a known byproduct of the breakdown of water by sunlight, in the ultraviolet spectrum. )



You can look up hydroxyl, but the reaction mentioned in the paragraph below ( H2O → 2OH) is what they believe they've found because of the interaction of sunlight and compounds found in the moon material that was released by the bomb. 

"In organic synthesis hydroxyl radicals are most commonly generated by photolysis of _1-Hydroxy-2(1H)-pyridinethione_."

Photolysis also occurs in the atmosphere as part of a series of reactions by which primary pollutants such as hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides react to form secondary pollutants such as peroxyacyl nitrates. See photochemical smog.   The two most important photodissociaton reactions in the troposphere are firstly:
 O3 + hν → O2 + O(1D) λ < 320 nm which generates an excited oxygen atom which can react with water to give the hydroxyl radical:
 O(1D) + H2O → 2OH The hydroxyl radical is central to atmospheric chemistry as it initiates the oxidation of hydrocarbons in the atmosphere and so acts as a detergent.

(This would be helpful in combating global warming) 

Secondly the reaction:
 NO2 + hν → NO + O is a key reaction in the formation of tropospheric ozone. The formation of the ozone layer is also caused by photodissociation. Ozone in the earth's stratosphere is created by ultraviolet light striking oxygen molecules containing two oxygen atoms (O2), splitting them into individual oxygen atoms (atomic oxygen). The atomic oxygen then combines with unbroken O2 to create ozone, O3. In addition, photolysis is the process by which CFCs are broken down in the upper atmosphere to form ozone-destroying chlorine free radicals.

Whew! I need a break.


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## Sparrow (Nov 15, 2009)

We've landed men on the Moon how many times, five or six?

Why the heck wasn't any of this stuff done then?

Now I've got to pay for this nonsense all over again.  I think not.
We do not need to glean any further information from the Moon under the guise of Global Warming research.  This was also the reasoning behind dozens of experiments carried out by the Space Shuttle Program over the past two and a half decades, and for justifying past and future Missions to Mars.

These quasi-scientific missions carried out by NASA are expensive, and pointless.



We pretty much know what must be done in respects to Global Warming and Climate Change.  Certainly what we still have to learn will not be found on either the Moon or Mars.


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## J-WO (Nov 15, 2009)

Sparrow said:


> Now I've got to pay for this nonsense all over again.  I think not.



Take heart, dude; you (and I) probably won't have to pay much at all. It'll be China or (IMHO, given their lines of probe-based inquiry) India as the next generation of Lunar pioneers. They've got the will and the vision to go for it and a desire to prove themselves as 21st/ 22nd century heavyweights.

The west will watch history being made through their i-players.


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## Chinook (Nov 15, 2009)

Sparrow said:


> We pretty much know what must be done in respects to Global Warming and Climate Change.



I understand your sentiments, but in reference to the statement above, If we know what must be done, why aren't we doing it?


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## dustinzgirl (Nov 15, 2009)

I completely disagree with Sparrow, in all respects of all his statement in the above. 

I am glad that we have been discovering things on the moon, especially water, which serves other theories about the origins of the moon and also can help us prepare for other lunar expeditions.


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## j d worthington (Nov 15, 2009)

Acquisition of knowledge always pays for itself in the long run -- usually with a considerable profit. We personally may not see that profit, but our descendants (assuming we survive) certainly will....


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## dustinzgirl (Nov 15, 2009)

j. d. worthington said:


> Acquisition of knowledge always pays for itself in the long run -- usually with a considerable profit. We personally may not see that profit, but our descendants (assuming we survive) certainly will....



Well my lineage, at least, will surely survive. We're all too damn mean.


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## Dave (Nov 15, 2009)

The British Astronomer, Patrick Moore, sounded a little sceptical of these results when speaking on the radio yesterday. He did used to be a renowned 'Moon' expert, which was why NASA used him during the Apollo missions. NASA has announced life on Mars before (ALH84001) without fully checking the facts, but I will wait in anticipation of further developments.

The important thing for the search for life in general is that Water does not look as unusual as we once thought it was.    


Sparrow said:


> We've landed men on the Moon how many times, five or six?
> 
> Why the heck wasn't any of this stuff done then?



The Moon is a big place and it isn't all the same. The manned landing sites were chosen primarily with safety in mind. (We still didn't really know what to expect. They could have sunk into the Moon surface as in Arthur C Clarke's _Fall of Moondust_.) So, they were all flat places away from any large rocks and boulders. If aliens sent spacecraft to Earth and only landed in the centre of the gravel and sand plains of deserts they wouldn't find much water or ice in the soil either.


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## Sparrow (Nov 15, 2009)

> J.D. ~Acquisition of knowledge always pays for itself in the long run -- usually with a considerable profit. We personally may not see that profit, but our descendants (assuming we survive) certainly will....



We already have a library of aquired knowledge on Climate and Global Warming and how humanity influences the latter.  Pollution and overpopulation, we begin to deal with it now or perhaps never. If after decades of research we scarcely recognize the danger we're in then another Moon Shot, or god forbid, a Manned Mission to Mars, is pure decadence.

These are the new catch phrases, Climate Change & Global Warming, that NASA uses to aquire more funding to carry out nonsensical research.


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## mosaix (Nov 15, 2009)

dustinzgirl said:


> I completely disagree with Sparrow, in all respects of all his statement in the above.
> 
> I am glad that we have been discovering things on the moon, especially water, which serves other theories about the origins of the moon and also can help us prepare for other lunar expeditions.



Seconded.


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## Chinook (Nov 17, 2009)

I would just like to weigh in, and say that I do nor disagree with Sparrow. (sorry about the double negative - I don't completely agree, but I don't completely disagree either. 

I want it to be clear though, that when I said "(This would be helpful in combating global warming)" that I did not mean to say that "We need to glean any further information from the Moon under the guise of Global Warming research."

It was just a side thought I had while running through the chemical reactions that are involved in atmospheric interactions. I didn't mean to imply that the research they are now doing on the moon would necessarily help combat global warming. I was talking about a particular trait of the chemical reaction called "Photolysis", and it's ability to act as a detergent in our atmosphere. It was simply a side note.


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## Window Bar (Nov 17, 2009)

With water being a proven component of comets, it is probable that the far reaches of the solar system hold far more water than does Earth. The gas giant planets, too, have no doubt gobbled many a comet--so water there, too, is plentiful (though probably sunken quite low beneath the gas shrouds).

The real information here is not that water exists elsewhere, but that a barren planetoid without the protection of an atmosphere can hold on to it.

Now, if they find a moon with a nice hoppy BEER...


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## J-WO (Nov 20, 2009)

Wasn't this a song by The Police?

_'Ah hope mah legs dohn' break,
water on de moon...'_


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## Drachir (Nov 21, 2009)

dustinzgirl said:


> Well my lineage, at least, will surely survive. We're all too damn mean.



So was tyrannosaurus rex.


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## Window Bar (Nov 25, 2009)

Drachir said:


> So was tyrannosaurus rex.



Yes, and the T. Rex survived for approximately 3 million years.

-- WB


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## Drachir (Nov 25, 2009)

Window Bar said:


> Yes, and the T. Rex survived for approximately 3 million years.
> 
> -- WB



True, but it is still dead.


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