Artist's concept of the Centaur rocket launching towards the Moon's Cabeus crater.
Credit: NASA
SYDNEY: Scientific analyses of water ice found in permanently frozen craters on the Moon by a NASA mission has shown that this water ice is "chock full" of other molecules, possibly including some carbon compounds.
Planetary scientist, Jennifer Heldmann, presented early results from the NASA Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission at the Australian Earth Sciences Convention in Canberra this week.
The mission slammed an impacting spacecraft called the Centaur rocket into the permanently shadowed Cabeus crater near the Moon's south pole last October, revealing water ice amongst the compounds that wafted into space.
Moon wetter, more complex than imagined
The impact created a two part (high and low-angle) plume, which a following spacecraft sampled before it also crashed.
Although NASA are not yet releasing full details about the composition of the molecules in the plume, early results suggest the Moon is a much more complex place than we thought, with an ice record potentially billions of years old.
"The more we are learning, the more we understand how complex the Moon is and how much we don't understand about it," Heldmann told Cosmos. "A few years ago we wouldn't have been having this conversation as the Moon was understood to be a dry place."
Extraterrestrial junk yards
Craters such as Cabeus act as cold traps for material arriving on the Moon from comet and meteoroid impacts as well as dust kicked up as material bounced around the Moon's surface.
The cold traps, which are around 40 Kelvin or -233 degrees Celsius, have not seen direct sunlight for billions of years, she says.
"These cold traps are acting as junk yards of the solar system." Since what came to the Moon may be similar to material that crashed into the early Earth, the cold traps could act as a record of the evolution of the early solar system. "Because of Earth's active geology the record [on Earth] is wiped out," she says.
Misleading Graphic and story...,as usual /// !!!111
As a Space Systems Design Engineer with three years experience laboring on the Centaur Upper Stage Rocket and other advanced space systems design projects for General Dynamics Space Systems Division, as well as working two years with General Electric Apollo Systems Division cultivating the second largest computer system in the world (which gave computers we use today graphics), I get sick and tired of the media and other organizations minimizing the role which major space systems components like the Centaur rocket system play.
Start telling and showing things truthfully for once. Readers deserve it.
Just for instance;
The graphic chosen for this f-article depicts the Shepherding satellite (left) which is a tiny little insignificant afterthought of a spacecraft, as a really big object compared to the CENTAUR ROCKET. The liquid hydrogen fueled Centaur is not only really big compared to the SS, but a hell of a lot smarter and more powerful by about a friggin Ba-Zillion!
Whatever happened to honest reporting using proper perspective, good information, and accurately proportioned graphics?
Everything that can be misleading about just only the graphic depicted here..., IS!
The story isn't much better.
For another instance;
There isn't a single mention of the primary purpose of even this single one of many missions enabled by the Centaur in this blurry and tangential blurb by Heat her Cant hole. That of course was for the fabulous Centaur rocket workhorse to put the Lunar Reconnaissance Observatory satellite into orbit around the moon for a very long period, and hopefully a very enlightening mission!
I am openly disgusted with COSMOS.MISLEAD!
n00b !!!111