2024 Author: Adelina Croftoon | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 02:07
Until Friday, November 13, the Moon only reflected on the surface of terrestrial reservoirs - from puddles to oceans, remaining itself dry and waterless, like the sands of the Sahara. But last Friday, scientists confidently proclaimed: "There is water on the moon!"
"Yes, we found water on the moon," said Anthony Kalaprete, NASA's chief investigator for lunar craters. "And not a few drops of water, but a significant amount." Confirmation of scientists' conjectures about the existence of water on the Moon was met with great enthusiasm by researchers who are going to organize a settlement of earthlings on its surface in the future. No less happy are those scientists who hope to figure out the history of the solar system, preserved in the ice of the moon for billions of years.
The search for water on the moon was carried out using a satellite. He crashed into a crater located near the south pole of the moon. This happened a month ago. The satellite flew into the crater at a speed of 9000 km per hour, formed a crater 20-35 meters in size and threw up at least 100 liters of water. "We got more than just droplets of water. We practically 'tasted it,'" said Peter Schultz, professor of geology at Brown University.
For more than a decade, scientists have guessed about the existence of water on the Moon in the form of ice at the bottom of cold lunar craters, where the sun's rays do not penetrate. The LCROSS mission consisted of two parts: an empty rocket that was supposed to hit the bottom of the Cabeus crater, 100 km wide and 3.2 km deep, and a small satellite that was supposed to establish the composition of the ejected soil. NASA experts, who sacrificed sleep so as not to miss the rocket impact on the crater on October 9, were disappointed. They did not see the artificial eruption of Cabeus. Even the most powerful telescopes on Earth, including those located at the Palomar Observatory in California, could not detect it. But LCROSS himself photographed the eruption, although some inaccuracy in the aiming made it impossible to see the details.
The conclusion about the presence of water was made on the basis of the change in soil color that occurred after the missile hit. The changes were caused by water molecules absorbing certain wavelengths of light. Scientists also found a change in the spectrum associated with the appearance of hydroxyl - an OH group, "knocked out" of water molecules as a result of a rocket impact. In addition, molecules of carbon dioxide and sulfur, as well as methane and other compounds were discovered. "We have a wide variety of possibilities before us," says Dr. Kalaprete.
The Cabeus crater, like other craters of the Moon located at its poles, is in constant darkness. The temperature at the bottom of the crater is minus 220 degrees Celsius. At such a temperature, no chemical compounds can "escape" from the crater. NASA's chief "lunar" scientist Michael Vargo says that "these craters are like the dusty closets of the solar system."
The moon has long been considered dry and waterless. Then there were hints of the existence of ice at the bottom of its polar craters. Some hypotheses in this regard suggest the influence of comets or the appearance of water inside the moon itself. “Now that we know for sure that there is water on the Moon thanks to LCROSS, we can begin to address other serious problems,” said Gregory Delory of the University of California, Berkeley. According to him, the results of the LCROSS mission and other spacecraft "paint a surprisingly new picture of the moon as a far from dead world. The moon can actually be very interesting and dynamic."
Indeed, if ice on the Moon is abundant, it will not only provide water for future earthly settlers. The oxygen and hydrogen contained in water will make it possible to produce fuel for rockets, and oxygen is necessary for the breathing of astronauts. It's funny that we will extract this ice, like ore or coal on Earth, arranging adits and slaughterhouses. However, unfortunately, the Moon is now far from the leading place in NASA's plans. Astronauts who first visited the moon in 1972 will return to it only in 2020. But now this date is in question. A presidential commission set up in May concluded that NASA's budget cuts make the 2020 date unrealistic. The commission proposed to President Obama a different plan: to forget about the moon and concentrate on the study of deep space using unmanned spacecraft.
Returning to the discovery of water on the Moon, it must be emphasized that the Moon is still far from a "wet" planet. It is possible that the soil of the Cabeus crater may turn out to be drier than the sands of terrestrial deserts. But, according to Dr. Kalaprete, 100 liters of water is only the lower limit, and therefore it is too early to draw conclusions about the concentration of water in the soil of lunar craters. Who knows how many years must still pass before Aelita greets the astronauts with a glass of water.
Landslide tracks and astronauts
Not only water was found on the moon, but also manifestations of geological activity, which was always considered impossible on this cold, "dead" celestial body. The American spacecraft LRO ("Lunar Orbital Reconnaissance") saw on the surface of our satellite a landslide that descended on the Moon relatively recently by geological standards. It would seem, what could be the reason for the movement of the soil, because there are no streams of water on the moon, the wind does not blow and there is no rain?
However, 15 years ago, an international group of researchers, including the Russian astronomer Vladislav Shevchenko, noted areas in the Reiner crater in photographs of the lunar surface that were significantly different in color from the surrounding soil. They were much darker, as befits a landslide that had only recently slipped off the top of the crater. The estimated time of the landslide formation is from several years to 500 thousand years, but this is in any case very small compared to the billions of years of the existence of the Moon. This is a "young" landslide.
The hypothesis of geological activity on the satellite was confirmed by LRO, and this device saw landslides in another crater - Marinus, although it is still quite difficult to name the reason for their appearance. Most likely, the landslides are the result of a meteorite shelling that caused moonquakes. In any case, the Moon does not seem to be as dead as it was 20 years ago.
The LRO has cameras on board with a huge resolution of 50 centimeters, and with their help another discovery was made. More precisely, the closure is the closure of the topic of the hoax created by the American space agency. Until very recently, some marginalized people seriously assured the public that the Americans were not on the moon. So, LRO photographed the Apollo landing sites with footprints and even astronaut footprints. However, the marginals will now probably say that the photographs are forged …
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