his illustration highlights the Moon’s Clavius Crater with an illustration depicting water trapped in the lunar soil there, along with an image of NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) that found sunlit lunar water. Credits: NASA/Daniel Rutter

NASA announces discovery of water on the Moon’s surface

Life on Moon has always been a topic of talk, whenever a new discovery, new study like Iron rich rocks on Moon or any other news, splits up around. But recent discovery of NASA, leads us to ask the same question again.

Water molecules were found in the Clavius Crater, one of the largest craters visible from the Earth, located in the Moon’s southern hemisphere. NASA announced that its Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) telescope has confirmed the presence of water on the sunlit side of the Moon for the first time. This discovery indicates that water molecules may be distributed across the lunar surface, and not limited to the cold, shadowed places as previously thought.

Scientists think the water could be stored inside glass beadlike structures within the soil that can be smaller than the tip of a pencil. They say this could mean that approximately 40,000 sq. km of the lunar surface has the capacity to trap water. They were able to reconstruct the size and distribution of these little craters using high-resolution images and lunar

measurements taken from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
NASA, which plans to establish a space station in the lunar orbit called Gateway, states that ice excavated from the Moon’s south pole may one day supply drinking water.

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