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."

Comments

Re:WTF?????

[ianare]

Yeah I didn't get the big deal about it either, until I read this :

"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."

... Ok so now what was the big deal again ?

Re:WTF?????

[AikonMGB]

All of the manned missions to the Moon took place in a relatively small area on the near-side. As far as I can tell from the press spiel in the link, M3's mission is to survey the entire surface of the Moon.

At present there is very little data of any sort regarding the far-side of the Moon. Information on the magnetic and gravitational fields is of particular interest because of its importance for orbital prediction, determination, and manipulation.

Aikon-

This is not news!

[Geoffrey.landis]

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.