WATER on the Moon

A radar experiment aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 lunar spacecraft has identified thick deposits of water ice near the Moon's north pole.
The craters with ice range from 2km to 15km (one to nine miles) in diameter; how much there is depends on its thickness in each crater. But Nasa says the ice must be at least a couple of metres thick to give the signature seen by Chandrayaan-1. Dr Paul Spudis, from the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, estimated there was at least 600 million metric tonnes of water ice held within these impact craters.
news.bbc.co.uk...

This is a wow, no need to bring water to a future moon base ?

Oops i was late, there is already a thread on the subject.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Admins, you can remove my two posts if you like. Sorry.

If there is ice then that means their has to be atmospheric pressure as well as some form of climate.

Basic chem. H20 unstable under a vacuum,

Correct?

I could be wrong.

Hello. Someone else on ATS said in the past that a thin oxygen atmostsphere has developed since 1969. That air leaks from a moon station could be the cause. I never forgot them saying that because it seemed to make sense, and I kind of beleive that the back side of the moon would be a perfect spot for some alien species to monitor earth undisturbed. We are so limited by what we can know and do. It is frustrating.

reply to post by frugal


I dont think the air from a moon base would be enough to create a thin atmosphere on the moon far side. It would be like pouring 1 million liters of fresh water in the Pacific and hope for a dilution effect. However, the Japanese Kaguya moon expedition found that gravity differs between the near and far side of the moon.

Using onboard sensors and relay satellites to map local gravity all over the Moon, KAGUYA has revealed the different gravity anomalies (the differences between the observed gravity and the average gravity) on the lunar nearside and farside.
www.jaxa.jp...

Originally posted by whiteraven
If there is ice then that means their has to be atmospheric pressure as well as some form of climate.

Basic chem. H20 unstable under a vacuum,

Correct?

I could be wrong.

This was addressed in a post on another thread here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

According to the information in that post, the temperature that water ice begins to sublimate in a vacuum is -186º Fahrenheit. The permanently-shadowed ice on the Moon is at a much colder temperature of -397º F.

Therefore it is too cold for the water ice to sublimate -- even in the near-vacuum of the Moon.

Albeit, I agree that the moon does have a tenuous but negligible atmosphere, mostly due to outgassing of the Moon's materials, plus dust kicked up by micrometeorites. However, it is still a near-vacuum environment.



[edit on 3/2/2010 by Soylent Green Is People]

There is already a thread on this and it was done just the day before yours. You might want to use the search function, believe me it will save you time

Search engine is your friend


moon/water

Existing thread here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

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