Poets who wax lyrical about the silvery Moon may be on to something. Scientists who blasted a spent rocket into a lunar crater last year released an unexpected treasure trove of elements - including traces of silver. But the levels are far too low to make it worth opening a lunar silver mine.More importantly from the point of view of space exploration, large amounts of water were discovered at the bottom of the Cabeus crater. Making up around 5.6 per cent of the surface material, it was present in sufficient quantities to be useful to future manned missions. Anthony Colaprete, from the US space agency's Ames research centre said it was a 'significant amount of water'. 'And it's in the form of water-ice grains. That's good news because water-ice is very much a friendly resource to work with. You don't have to warm it very much; you just have to bring it up to room temperature to pull it out of the dirt real easy. (Daily Mail)Friday 22 October 2010
Why the Moon really IS silvery: Lunar surface contains traces of precious metal and is 6% water
Poets who wax lyrical about the silvery Moon may be on to something. Scientists who blasted a spent rocket into a lunar crater last year released an unexpected treasure trove of elements - including traces of silver. But the levels are far too low to make it worth opening a lunar silver mine.More importantly from the point of view of space exploration, large amounts of water were discovered at the bottom of the Cabeus crater. Making up around 5.6 per cent of the surface material, it was present in sufficient quantities to be useful to future manned missions. Anthony Colaprete, from the US space agency's Ames research centre said it was a 'significant amount of water'. 'And it's in the form of water-ice grains. That's good news because water-ice is very much a friendly resource to work with. You don't have to warm it very much; you just have to bring it up to room temperature to pull it out of the dirt real easy. (Daily Mail)