Scientists find evidence for widespread water ice on the moon

Scientists from NASA's Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment team have detected the widespread presence of water ice in large areas of the moon's south pole.

Their findings appear 22 October in two papers published in the journal Science. The research was funded by NASA.

LRO surface temperature map of the moon's south polar region

Diviner, an infrared spectrometer aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), has made the first infrared measurements of temperatures in the permanently shadowed craters at the moon's poles.

In October 2009, Diviner also made the first infrared observations of a controlled impact on the moon, when NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), the companion spacecraft to the LRO, slammed into one of the coldest of these craters in an experiment to confirm the presence or absence of water ice.

UCLA professor of planetary science David Paige, Diviner's principal investigator and lead author of one of the Science papers, used temperature measurements of the lunar south pole obtained by Diviner to model the stability of water ice both at and near the surface. The stability of water ice is an indication that it has existed in a particular location over an extended period of time.

"The temperatures inside these permanently shadowed craters are even colder than we had expected," Paige said. "Our model results indicate that in these extreme cold conditions, surface deposits of water ice would almost certainly be stable; but perhaps more significantly, these areas are surrounded by much larger permafrost regions where ice could be stable just beneath the surface."