NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: Agency's Moon Orbiter Finds Evidence of Frost
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter(LRO) has detected new evidence of water ice on the moon.
"We found that the coldest places near the moon's south pole are also the brightest places—brighter than we would expect from soil alone—and that might indicate the presence of surface frost," Elizabeth Fisher, lead author of the study, wrote.
Through the LRO, NASA was able to detect bright areas from craters found in the moon's south pole. Temperature readings suggest that the areas are cold enough for water ice to formulate. The regions which are both cold and bright may be where water ice appears on the surface as frost.
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According to the researchers, the cold regions they detected do not appear to be frozen bodies of water. They look like surface frost. Since the bright areas appear patchy and thin, NASA believes that the icy areas could be mixed with the surface layer of soil and regolith or small rocks.
NASA is still in the process of studying these intriguing icy deposits. When the scientists expect to find ice in the coldest sections of the moon, which are cold enough for ice to form, what they find is never what they expect.
Ice deposits remain a mystery for NASA. They are trying to figure out how these are any different from the deposits found in Mercury, which is the closest planet to the sun. From what scientists have observed, the planet even appears to have more ice deposits than the moon.
Another question that researchers are dying to answer is the origin of the moon's ice. They believe that it could either be from asteroids and comets or from chemical reactions instigated by solar wind. And if it is the former, the water would be as old as the solar system itself. But if it is the latter, the water was delivered more recently.
Much of the regions have yet to be examined. The areas could have more ice deposits below ground.
