More Water on Moon than Originally Thought

[Ursa major]

AP Science Writer= LOS ANGELES (AP) — When NASA blasted a hole in the moon last year in search of water, scientists figured there would be a splash. They just didn't know how big.

Now new results from the Hollywood-esque moonshot reveal lots of water in a crater where the sun never shines — 41 gallons of ice and vapor.


That may not sound like much — it's what a typical washing machine uses for a load — but it's almost twice as much as researchers had initially measured and more than they ever expected to find.

From Last year's moonshot splashed up lots of water | World news | guardian.co.uk.
​

There are oases of water-rich soil that could sustain astronauts on the Moon, according to Nasa.

Scientists studied the full results of an experiment that smashed a rocket and a probe into a lunar crater last year.

The impacts kicked up large amounts of rock and dust, revealing a suite of fascinating chemical compounds and far more water than anyone had imagined.

A Nasa-led team tells Science magazine that about 155kg of water vapour and water-ice were blown out of the crater.

The researchers' analysis suggests the lunar regolith, or soil, at the impact site contains 5.6% by weight of water-ice.

From BBC News - Moon's water is useful resource, says Nasa.
​

 

[J-WO]

I think we may be in for another space race, albeit with the possibility of more than two competitors.

 

[Pyan]

Lunar ice-mining having been a staple of SF writers since at least the Golden Age, it's nice to see that it's not as unlikely as everyone else thought...