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| Spacecraft see 'damp' Moon soils | Spacecraft see 'damp' Moon soils |
| (18 minutes later) | |
| A surprising amount of water has been found to exist in the Moon's soil. | A surprising amount of water has been found to exist in the Moon's soil. |
| Data from three spacecraft, including India's Chandrayaan probe, shows that very fine films of H20 coat the particles that make up the lunar dirt. | Data from three spacecraft, including India's Chandrayaan probe, shows that very fine films of H20 coat the particles that make up the lunar dirt. |
| The quantity is tiny but could become a useful resource for astronauts wishing to live on the Moon, scientists say. | The quantity is tiny but could become a useful resource for astronauts wishing to live on the Moon, scientists say. |
| "If you had a cubic metre of lunar soil, you could squeeze it and get out a litre of water," explained US researcher Larry Taylor. | "If you had a cubic metre of lunar soil, you could squeeze it and get out a litre of water," explained US researcher Larry Taylor. |
| The rock and soil samples returned by the Apollo missions were found to be ever so slightly damp when examined in the laboratory, but scientists could never rule out the possibility that the moisture got into the samples on Earth. | |
| Now a remote sensing instrument on Chandrayaan-1, India's first mission to lunar orbit, has confirmed that the signal was real. | |
| Two other spacecraft to look at the Moon - Nasa's Deep Impact probe and the US-European Cassini satellite - back up Chandrayaan. | |
| Both collected their Moon data long before Chandrayaan was launched (in the case of Cassini, 10 years ago), but the significance of what they saw is only now being realised. | |
| Indian 'triumph' | |
| Scientists suspect the water is created in the soil in an interaction with the solar wind, the fast-moving stream of particles that constantly billows away from the Sun. | |
| Harsh space radiation triggers a chemical reaction in which oxygen atoms already in the soil acquire hydrogen nuclei to make water molecules and the simpler hydrogen-oxygen (OH) molecule. | |
| The amounts are small, say researchers, but boost the notion that astronauts based on the Moon could use it as a resource. | |
| "If it is a little or a lot, it's easy enough to split into hydrogen and oxygen and then you have rocket fuel," said Professor Taylor, a University of Tennessee researcher working on Chandrayaan. | |
| The Indian Moon mission was launched late last year but has already stopped working due to a fault. Nevertheless, the Indian space agency (Isro) will consider the water discovery major triumph for the mission. | |
| A Nasa probe is due to impact with a lunar crater next month to see if it can kick up sufficient soil so that another satellite and Earth-based telescopes can detect the presence of water. |