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Chandrayaan M3 Instrument Confirms Iron-Bearing Minerals On the Moon
William Robinson writes with news that the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), an instrument developed by NASA and sent aboard India's Chandrayaan-1, has confirmed the presence of iron-bearing minerals on the moon. This marks the beginning of an extensive examination of the composition of the lunar surface.
"Isro officials said M3 would help in characterising and mapping lunar minerals to ultimately understand the moon's early geological evolution. 'The compositional map that will come out of M3 will have fantastic data on geological formation of the moon,' the official said. Researchers said the relative abundance of magnesium and iron in lunar rocks could help confirm whether the moon was covered by a molten, magma ocean early on in its history. Iron and magnesium will also indicate melting of the moon, if it happened and how it formed later. This metallic element has been found in lunar meteorites, but scientists know little about its distribution in the lunar crust."
exactly what is the canary we take down the shaft with us going to breathe?
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Why hasn't this presence been detected more times, and earlier? Capable CCD technology has been prevalent for a while.
Now thats exactly what we didnt need to hear.
Would someone go to the moon to extract some minerals? :)
Maybe a new trip on the Moon sooner?
"William Robinson writes with news that the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), an instrument developed by NASA and sent aboard India's Chandrayaan-1, has confirmed the presence of iron-bearing minerals on the moon. This marks the beginning of an extensive examination of the composition of the lunar surface."
-As if actually analyzing the actual lunar samples brought back by earlier moon missions wasn't enough.....
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
even space exploration is being outsourced to India? discuss
It had to be said.
Danger Will Robinson!
when people we realize we shouldn't mine on the moon simply for the fact it could seriously distort our gravitational forces and throw us into the sun. I mean, it's not like we're not deserving of such a fate. ;P
On the heels of the "landing" of an Indian vehicle on the moon, and now the confirmation of iron-bearing minerals, pretty soon we will all be told the earth is actually round (with pictures!).
Mindless hyperbole usually make you look like an a$$.
It's a space station!
Anybody ever see "Outland": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outland_(film)?
Maybe, in the future, someone is planning to send criminal violators of Internet Censorship Laws to an Outland-like mining colony on the Moon. There, for something to do, they can break Moon rocks with sledgehammers, and extract the iron ore from them. The iron ore will be sent down to Earth on the nanotube elevator.
But I'm thinking, with the lower gravity, the Moon sledgehammers would have to be bigger to have the same force as those on Earth. Extra Credit Freshman Physics Exam question: How much bigger?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
.. my fridge magnets are all alive on the moon!
... that eats rust, "breathes" the oxygen in it and poops iron guano? Who needs miners when ya got canaries like that?
Hmm. Well with iron and woods on the moon, throw in a putter...
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
William Robinson writes with news that the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), an instrument developed by NASA and sent aboard India's Chandrayaan-1, has confirmed the presence of iron-bearing minerals on the moon. This marks the beginning of an extensive examination of the composition of the lunar surface.
I'm far more interested to hear how Mr. Robinson and his family made it back from Alpha Centauri and did Dr. Smith and the Robot make the return journey with them?
Andy Warhol got it right / Everybody gets the limelight
Andy Warhol got it wrong / Fifteen minutes is too long.
India's Chandrayaan-1, has confirmed the presence of iron-bearing minerals on the moon.>/p?
The presence of iron bearing minerals on the moon is not news.
At best, I suppose it might be news that at least one of Chandrayaan-1's instruments is functional, but "we've found iron on the moon" (Iron being, I believe, the third most common element in lunar rock, after silicon) is not even a difficult test of the instruments-- mapping phosphorus, or one of the trace elemental components, would be more interesting.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Let's bootstrap moon production. Why lug tons of materials up there when we could figure out how to build most of what we want using materials already present on the moon. Leave the expensive task of cargo hauling to components that would cost too much to get the manufacturing equipment there. Let's see if we can get a near self sustaining habitation there before we think of sending more people.
Does that mean there is something up there to eat that lunar landing equipment after-all?
Earth First ! (We'll mine the other planets later...) --poster seen at a mining operation
in the Selenite's ventilation shaft.
Had a first edition of the book years ago; lost it, wish I still had it.
Cheese contains approximately 2% of your RDA for Iron: http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/7583/2
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
I think the real news is that the M3 is working and is confirming the results of other moon missions. This isn't so much important for double-checking that there really *is* iron on the moon, but more double-checking that the M3 is working and providing correct information. If the M3 sent back information that the moon's surface was composed of cheese-oxide, they'd probably want to recheck their instruments.
One thing I would like to know is whether this is iron ore that can be processed by a future lunar factory into metal? But the other interesting thing is that it looks like the mission of the M3 is to create a high-resolution mineral map of the moon, which is interesting to me as this would be very useful for possible exploitation of lunar resources in the future.
Anyway, I haven't heard of this mission before (sorry, I've only started to get back interested in astronomy recently) but I'm glad they're doing it.
Here's some links I've found:
NASA's page on the M3
A Space Spin article
Wikipedia on Chandrayaan
Also, from TFA:
"Obviously many missions before have found iron, but Chandrayaan-1 has reiterated the presence. We believe it is very significant because the mission has already fulfilled one of its objectives, which was to sight minerals. More is to come and it should be exciting if we can confirm the presence of uranium and other minerals,'' said an ISRO official.
Which would be extremely cool if we found uranium on the moon because of the possibility of nuclear energy on the moon. I know, we'll probably only exploit solar at first with the future lunar outpost, but still neat.
(BTW, I'm basically just spilling the thoughts that I'm sure anyone else is having when they read this stuff, I'm sure others will correct whatever mistaken thoughts I have.)
of sending prisoners. It would be robots since they do not require O2/water/food.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If I were Britain, or even the rest of EU, I would skip the part of working on habitats.Britain was talking of extending ISS with a module. Instead, they should buy the modules from Bigelow and focus on various robotics. In particular, I would work on some that can work on the outside of the ISS (floating around; help astronauts), and others that will work the moon/mars. The reason is that those same robots used on moon/mars can be used on Earth. That is also why America should be focusing on that.
As to cargo hauling, rockets ARE rocket SCIENCE. There is still art, but not like 50 years ago. Now, would be a good time for govs to get out of the task of cargo hauling and encourage the private enterprise to take over.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Once again, "confirm" is to be taken as "finds the thing we already knew was there", rather than the implied "found, and the data verified". More than 700 kg of lunar material has been returned by Apollo and Luna. We have a very good understanding of the content. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rock
The actual main point of TFA is that the NASA device detects what it should if it were working properly, and so should, barring other problems, be able to map the surface in terms of mineral content. If and when it does, that will be news. Saying "it's not broke so far" isn't very newsworthy.
In the absence of substantive discoveries of its own (which I have no doubt will occur; there's much to learn and the Indian team is quite capable), ISRO tends to sound like the little brother tagging along with the big kids, chattering on about how he's a big kid now too, despite just being there as opposed to actually having done big kid stuff (TFA *is* about a NASA device, after all). In the mean time, the big kids might find it annoying, but you're not doing it for them, so get excited, wave that flag, and have a ball. Heck, I remember Houston breaking into cheers just because Apollo 8 fired its motor for trans-lunar insertion, a far cry from actually making it.
Patience guys, if you don't have a significant primary discovery all your own in 90 days (for the data; confirmatory analysis may take a while longer), either you're not trying or it broke.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Those aren't iron bearing minerals... It's Unicron!