ISRO’s Moon Impact Probe also located water on the moon
25 Sep 2009
Bangalore: With the discovery of water on the moon, NASA's M cube (Moon Mineralogy Mapper) may be staking claim to have made one of the most significant discoveries in space exploration to date, but Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) officials now reveal that India's own Moon Impact Probe (MIP) also made the same discovery even as it hurtled down to crash land on the lunar surface.
Meanwhile, India's top space scientist G Madhavan Nair said here Friday that Chandrayaan-1 had made a "path-breaking and real discovery" by establishing the presence of water on the moon. Nair added: "But the water is not in the form of sea or lake or puddle or drops. It is embedded on the surface in minerals and rocks."
According to Nair, the "quantity found is much larger than expected".
On whether water can be extracted, Nair said: "Yes, we can. But one tonne of soil may yield half a litre."
Nair said MIP picked up signals about the presence of water as it journeyed down to land on the moon surface.
"One of the main objectives of Chandrayaan-1 was to look for the presence of water. Our MIP confirmed it."
Nair said that ISRO had indications of the finding "way back in June", but waited all these days to make it public as they wanted the findings to come out in a scientific journal first.
"The volume of data collected from Chandrayaan-1 is phenomenal. It may take six months to three years to analyse it."
