Scientists May Have Found Ice on Moon
Friday, December 19, 2008 |
FoxNews.com
NASA
Craters near one of the moon's poles in a NASA archival photo.
Could there be ice on the moon?
A team of British researchers thinks so, and theorizes that the water could be put to use by residents of a future permanent lunar base.
Poring over data from NASA's 1998 Lunar Prospector probe, the Durham University scientists found that hydrogen on the moon tends to be concentrated in dark craters near the lunar poles — exactly where you'd expect water, permanently shielded from the sun's rays by the crater walls, to stay frozen.
"Water ice should be stable for billions of years on the moon provided that it receives no sunlight," explained Dr. Vincent Eke of the university's Institute for Computational Cosmology in a press release.
A NASA scientist said the results would help the space agency decide where to place a moon base, expected within the next 20 years.
