Ice on the Moon has long been a source of fascination and a potential resource for lunar colonization efforts. Recent developments have raised questions about the extent of ice in permanently shadowed lunar craters.
On August 23rd, India’s Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft successfully landed near the Moon’s south pole, marking a significant achievement for the nation and adding it to the list of lunar explorers.
Scientists have speculated for decades that water, remnants of a massive comet impact billions of years ago, may be hidden in the depths of certain lunar craters. These craters are shrouded in perpetual darkness, with temperatures below freezing for billions of years. This has been confirmed by lunar missions like Chandrayaan-1 and Lcross (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite).
However, a recent study led by planetary scientist Norbert Schorghofer from the University of Arizona challenges our assumptions about the presence of significant ice deposits in these permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) at the lunar poles.
“The results change our predictions of where we expect to find lunar water ice, and estimates of its abundance in permanently shadowed regions on the Moon may not be accurate,” Schorghofer explained.
To reach this conclusion, the team of scientists relied on recent research on celestial mechanics by French astronomers, calculating the gravitational forces exerted by the Sun and Earth on the Moon. These forces have caused the Moon to slowly move away from Earth over billions of years, altering the tilt of our satellites’ orbits and potentially affecting the positions and extents of lunar PSRs.
“We can quantitatively age the actual extent of PSRs, up to 1.8 billion years at most. So, there cannot be ancient ice reservoirs on the Moon,” Schorghofer added.
While it’s certain that there is water in some lunar craters, particularly evident from the water vapor plume created by the Centaur impact during the LCROSS mission on October 9, 2009, the study challenges the notion that even the youngest PSRs contain substantial ice. Therefore, the older PSRs may not contain as much ice as previously thought.
NASA’s Artemis program is expected to pave the way for lunar exploration, with plans to establish a lunar base and send astronauts to study the Moon as a stepping stone for future missions to Mars.
This research was published in the prestigious journal Science Advances.