"It's a pretty challenging environment to be drilling in cryogenic conditions in the
lunar pole," says Brad Jones, Neptec's program manager of the Artemis Jr.
Scientists hope the desolate
lunar pole will be a fertile hunting ground in their search for water.
Mitrofanov said that the
lunar pole is a most favourable place for future outposts for humans in deep space and emphasized that moon exploration was a step toward future Mars journeys.
Near each
lunar pole, the neutron spectrometer detected a drop in the number of neutrons.
Washington, March 20 (ANI): If reports are to be believed, the Moon may have bucketloads of water, with a NASA release indicating the amount of water ice detected in the north
lunar pole as 600 million metric tons, stashed away in 40 craters.
The mountains and crater rims close to the north
lunar pole will be seen superimposed on the ringed planet's disk as the Moon glides by--a dramatic sight worth photographing or videotaping if you can.
Crisp views of the
lunar pole, obtained through a series of filters, showed geologists that some tracts previously thought to be ancient "highlands" were in fact flooded lava plains overlaid by veneers of rubble from later cratering events.
The space agency said that, following this, a series of orbit maneuvers will be performed on Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft to enable it to enter its final orbit passing over the
lunar poles at a distance of about 100 km from the Moon's surface.
We know there is trapped water at the
lunar poles, where the temperature is as low as -190 degrees Celsius (-310 Fahrenheit)".
The probe will undertake a variety of missions, including bringing samples back to Earth, and visiting the
lunar poles.
Another strong piece of evidence came from a spectrometer on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter that counted neutrons emitted from the
lunar poles within a specific energy range, which signifies interaction with hydrogen atoms and thus, most likely, water.