NASA finds signs of water on moon

PASADENA, Calif., Sept. 24 (UPI) -- U.S. space agency scientists announced Thursday they have discovered water molecules in the polar regions of the moon.

NASA said instruments aboard three separate spacecraft revealed the water molecules in amounts greater than predicted, but still relatively small. Hydroxyl, a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom, also was found in the lunar soil.

NASA said its Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument aboard the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayann-1 spacecraft reported the initial observations. Data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, as well as its Epoxi spacecraft, provided confirmation.

Brown University Professor Carle Pieters, a NASA investigator, said when scientists say "water on the moon," they are not talking about lakes, oceans or even puddles.

"Water on the moon means molecules of water and hydroxyl that interact with molecules of rock and dust specifically in the top millimeters of the moon's surface," he said.

Roger Clark, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist in Denver and a NASA team member, also said the amount detected so far is relatively small.

"While the abundances are not precisely known, as much as 1,000 water molecule parts-per-million could be in the lunar soil," Clark said. "To put that into perspective, if you harvested 1 ton of the top layer of the moon's surface, you could get as much as 32 ounces of water."