Over the moon

Sep 25, 2009

What is the big takeaway from Chandrayaan’s discovery of water on the moon?

These findings are a remarkable first, finally confirming what we had long wondered about. For decades, we thought that the moon was bone dry, that it couldn’t possibly have any water. There isn’t that much water, it’s not like there’s a swimming pool – but what’s really interesting is the way the water is produced. Solar winds blowing on to the moon’s surface contain protons and some other particles, which interact with chemicals and minerals in the top layer of the moon’s soil. This produces OH and then water molecules. The water produced dries up on the hotter parts of the moon, but there are wetter patches near the polar areas. We can surmise what this might lead to, whether it could seep into large permanentaly dark caverns near the moon’s poles. What was phenomenal about this effort was the way it pooled the imagination, intellectual resources and working styles of different groups of scientists across the world. In terms of cooperation, selection of instruments, in terms of the enormous data collected, it was a fantastic success.