The finding by NASA's miniSAR aboard Indian probe Chadrayaan-1 has detected ice deposits at the Moon's poles, making the presence of water in the Moon even more official (see previous posts on this matter: here and here). More at Science Daily. The real obstacles for more or less permanent human presence on the Moon are then others, notably the lack of a natural shield against solar radiation (and cosmic radiation in general).
And apparently lots of it. These are the results of a NASA probe (Centaur) that intently impacted on a Lunar crater in order to raise a plume of debris that could be analyzed by telescopes and the Lunar satellite LCROSS. The plume was smaller than expected but after due research in the last weeks it has been determined beyond doubt that a good deal of it was water vapor. In fact, the water detected was more than 100 Kg. (100 liters at normal Earth pressures and temperatures, I guess). Future research will determine if this finding is confirmed and if there is water also in other spots. If so, the path for space colonization would be a step closer to reality. However we must remember that the conditions in space and other planetary objects out there are highly hostile: extreme cold, radiation and lack of naturally breathable atmospheres make the whole affair still extremely difficult, much more than colonizing frozen Anctartica for example. Source: BBC..
Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan has found that the Lunar dust has a small apportion of water moisture, about 0.1%. Apollo project samples of Lunar dust were known to have that tiny amount of water but it was uncertain until now whether the moisture had formed in the journey to Earth or was genuine. This finding may make the possibility of estabilishing a scientific Lunar base more feasible, as you could in principle extract the water from the soil and use it as such water, or electrolyse it into oxygen, even more necessary for human life, or even use the water molecular components, oxygen and hydrogen as portable fuel for rockets or whatever. It is also possible that some craters, specially towards the poles, could hold significative amounts of water ice, as suggested by the strong hydrogen signal detected by NASA's Lunar Prospector towards the poles. Source: BBC. See also this article at SD, more detailed in some aspects.
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Yes, THE Moon, our Moon, not any other moon (natural satellite) over there. So far the mainstream belief was that it was completely dehydrated when the parent object, a planet the size of Mars hit the Earth in a violent collision at the beginning of the their respective histories.But now a new study claims that volcanic eruptions threw water out some some three billion years ago. It seems that some of the rocks brought back to Earth by the Apollo program expeditions have been found to have minimal remains of water (46 parts per million). Most of this archaic water must have vanished in outer space, as the Moon's gravity is too weak to retain it but there is now speculation that some of it may have remained frozen at polar craters. More at BBC.
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