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No Ice on the Moon

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what-keeps-the-cheese-cold dept.

eldavojohn writes "In 1994, there was speculation that there might be a southern ice cap on the moon — something our exploration of it could take advantage of. Unfortunately, recent evidence has come to light revealing that this probably isn't true." From the article: "If there is any ice at the South Pole, it probably comes from tiny, scattered grains that probably account for only one or two percent of the local dust, the authors suggest. "Any planning for future exploitation of hydrogen at the Moon's South Pole should be constrained by this low average abundance rather than by the expectation of localized deposits at higher concentrations," the paper says soberly. The research involved sending a radar signal from the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico. The signal hit the southern lunar region and the reflection was picked up by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia." Well, it looks like we're going to have to hit Hoth before we hold that kegger on the moon."

4 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Green Bank Telescope by penix1 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The research involved sending a radar signal from the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico. The signal hit the southern lunar region and the reflection was picked up by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia


    I live in WV and have seen the Green Bank Telescope. Impressive radio telescope. Not as impressive as Arecibo though. I was expecting more like an array but it really is just one giant dish.

    Better link than in the story:

    http://www.gb.nrao.edu/

    B.
    --
    This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
    1. Re:Green Bank Telescope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I live about 30-45 minutes away from NRAO (and in WV, that's practically next door), I've been in the control centers for all of the telescopes, I even got to hang out with the SETI guys, before they became project phoenix.. The big dish is HUGE. The dish is the size of a football field. It weighs 16,000,000 (yes, 16 million) pounds. Here is a picture showing the GBT to scale with the washington monument and the statue of liberty: http://www.space.com/images/h_steerable_size_02.jp g

      They had a telescope almost as big as that one before (I forget how big it was, and exactly when they had it), but it collapsed. That would have been something to see.

  2. That's just silly by StefanJ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sometimes stories just go back, and not forth. I suspect this is one of them.

    Back in the Apollo days, a Saturn V third stage was allowed to smash into the moon so seismographs could pick up the vibrations. This and other tests allowed scientists to get a basic idea of the moon's interior structure. A core or crust of ice would have been pretty obvious. If there was any ice, it would have to be just traces.

    Our instruments are getting increasingly better. This is a case of a hypothesis based on observations by a crude instrument being disproved by follow-up investigations by more sophisticated gear.

    I'm disappointed, but hey, the universe wasn't designed to things easy for us.

  3. One or two percent? That's rich ore. by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Gold is economical to extract from ore that has less than one ounce of gold per ton.

    Water is going to be more valuable than gold to someone on the Moon.

    Water is way easy to extract.