NASA Instruments Reveal Water Molecules on Lunar Surface

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Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

News release: 2009-147 Sept. 24, 2009

NASA Instruments Reveal Water Molecules on Lunar Surface

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA scientists have discovered water molecules in the polar regions of the
moon. Instruments aboard three separate spacecraft revealed water molecules in amounts that are
greater than predicted, but still relatively small. Hydroxyl, a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom
and one hydrogen atom, also was found in the lunar soil. The findings were published in Thursday's
edition of the journal Science.

NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper, or M3, instrument reported the observations. M3 was carried into
space on Oct. 22, 2008, aboard the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.
Data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, or VIMS, on NASA's Cassini spacecraft,
and the High-Resolution Infrared Imaging Spectrometer on NASA's Epoxi spacecraft contributed to
confirmation of the finding. The spacecraft imaging spectrometers made it possible to map lunar
water more effectively than ever before.

The confirmation of elevated water molecules and hydroxyl at these concentrations in the moon's
polar regions raises new questions about its origin and effect on the mineralogy of the moon. Answers
to these questions will be studied and debated for years to come.

"Water ice on the moon has been something of a holy grail for lunar scientists for a very long time,"
said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
"This surprising finding has come about through the ingenuity, perseverance and international
cooperation between NASA and the India Space Research Organization."

From its perch in lunar orbit, M3's state-of-the-art spectrometer measured light reflecting off the
moon's surface at infrared wavelengths, splitting the spectral colors of the lunar surface into small
enough bits to reveal a new level of detail in surface composition. When the M3 science team
analyzed data from the instrument, they found the wavelengths of light being absorbed were
consistent with the absorption patterns for water molecules and hydroxyl.
"For silicate bodies, such features are typically attributed to water and hydroxyl-bearing materials,"
said Carle Pieters, M3's principal investigator from Brown University, Providence, R.I. "When we say
'water on the moon,' we are not talking about lakes, oceans or even puddles. Water on the moon
means molecules of water and hydroxyl that interact with molecules of rock and dust specifically in
the top millimeters of the moon's surface.

The M3 team found water molecules and hydroxyl at diverse areas of the sunlit region of the moon's
surface, but the water signature appeared stronger at the moon's higher latitudes. Water molecules and
hydroxyl previously were suspected in data from a Cassini flyby of the moon in 1999, but the
findings were not published until now.

"The data from Cassini's VIMS instrument and M3 closely agree," said Roger Clark, a U.S.
Geological Survey scientist in Denver and member of both the VIMS and M3 teams. "We see both
water and hydroxyl. While the abundances are not precisely known, as much as 1,000 water molecule
parts-per-million could be in the lunar soil. To put that into perspective, if you harvested one ton of
the top layer of the moon's surface, you could get as much as 32 ounces of water."

For additional confirmation, scientists turned to the Epoxi mission while it was flying past the moon
in June 2009 on its way to a November 2010 encounter with comet Hartley 2. The spacecraft not only
confirmed the VIMS and M3 findings, but also expanded on them.

"With our extended spectral range and views over the north pole, we were able to explore the
distribution of both water and hydroxyl as a function of temperature, latitude, composition, and time
of day," said Jessica Sunshine of the University of Maryland. Sunshine is Epoxi's deputy principal
investigator and a scientist on the M3 team. "Our analysis unequivocally confirms the presence of
these molecules on the moon's surface and reveals that the entire surface appears to be hydrated
during at least some portion of the lunar day."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the M3 instrument, Cassini mission
and Epoxi spacecraft for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Indian Space
Research Organization built, launched and operated the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.

For additional information and images from the instruments, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/moonmars .

For more information about the Chandrayaan-1 mission, visit:
http://isro.gov.in/Chandrayaan/htmls/home.htm .

For more information about the EPOXI mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/epoxi .

For more information about the Cassini mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/cassini .

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