Now they find water on Mars!

Now they find water on Mars: Meteorites uncover ice which could point to life

By Claire Bates
27th September 2009
International space missions have found evidence of ice on Mars - a sign the planet could sustain extraterrestrial life.
Nasa said its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted ice at five new Martian craters, likely kicked up by meteor impacts.
'This ice is a relic of a more humid climate from perhaps just several thousand years ago,' said Shane Byrne of the University of Arizona. 'This is a real water resource.'
The discovery at the satellite's mid-latitudes is much further from the poles than was previously thought. This, argues a report in Scientific American, would provide supplies for colonists to use on landing.

The news comes a day after it was also revealed that large quantities of water had been found on the surface of the Moon.
It means a manned base on the Earth's satellite could now become a reality within 20 years.

The discovery increases the chances of humanity living on the lunar surface inside protective domes, mining the rocks and dust for water to drink and power spacecrafts.

The scientific discovery made by the Indian lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 was announced by Nasa today.
'Widespread water has been detected on the surface of the Moon. None of us had expected this 10 years ago,' Nasa's Carle Pieters said.

Dr Jessica Sunshine, one of the researchers who found the water, said: 'It's sort of just sticking on the surface. We always think of the Moon as dead, and this is sort of a dynamic process that's going on.'
Ten years ago, scientists found traces of water lying in the shadowy craters at the Moon's poles.

The latest announcement comes two weeks before a Nasa probe will smash near the Moon's south pole to see whether it can kick up buried ice.

The discovery, with three studies being published in the journal Science today and a Nasa briefing, could refocus interest in the moon.
The appeal of the Moon waned after astronauts visited 40 years ago and called it 'magnificent desolation'.
The discovery confirms what two other space probes have found, namely that the chemical signs of water are all over the Moon's surface.

It is not enough moisture to foster homegrown life on the Moon. But if processed in mass quantities, it might provide resources - drinking water and rocket fuel - for future Moon-dwellers, scientists say. The water comes and goes during the lunar day.
Dr Sunshine said a two litre bottle of lunar earth would only provide enough water to fill the pipette of a medicine bottle.

And Nasa's Rob Green told a press conference tonight: 'Even the driest deserts on Earth have more water than at the poles of the Moon.'

When Apollo astronauts first returned from the Moon in 1969, they brought back souvenirs in the form of rocks to be used for analysis, and one of the chief questions was if there was water in lunar rocks and soils.
However, most of the boxes containing the lunar samples leaked which led scientists to assume traces of water found came from Earth air that had entered the containers.
They assumed that, outside the possibility of ice at the poles, there was no water on the Moon. Now 40 years later, this old assumption has been overturned.
A lunar scientist familiar with the findings said: 'This is the most exciting breakthrough in at least a decade. And it will probably change the face of lunar exploration for the next decade.'
The Sun is constantly undergoing nuclear fusion and thereby emitting highly charged hydrogen protons that blast the surface of the Moon. One theory of how the water forms is that if these mixed with oxygen in the surface soil it they could create water

Amazingly, the new data also suggests that water is continously being formed on the Moon.
The Indian spacecraft was launched into orbit around the Moon in October last year. It was fitted with a Moon Mineralogy Mapper, or M3 for short, designed to search for water by picking up the electromagnetic radiation emitted by hydrogen and oxygen minerals.
How solar wind could be forming water on the Moon

Scientists believe the Sun's solar wind could be interacting with the Moon's soil to form the liquid. Nuclear reactions take place deep within the Sun due to the enormous pressure and heat generated by the star.

This creates the solar wind - a constant stream of highly charged hydrogen ions that billow outwards into our Solar System.

We are protected by the solar wind due to Earth's atmosphere, however the Moon has no such shield. This means the oxygen-rich surface is bombarded by the hydrogen ions at one-third the speed of light.

Scientists believe that when these ions hit the lunar surface with enough force, they break apart the oxygen bonds in the Moon soil.

Together they may be forming trace amounts of water, which is made up of two parts of hydrogen to one part of oxygen.

They estimate two pints of water are contained within each ton of Moon soil.The Nasa-designed machine could detect water on and a few inches below the surface of the Moon.
Scientists were looking for a signature of water in the craters near the poles, but were surprised to find evidence of water on the sunlit areas of the Moon instead.
Experts believe the water is trapped in the Moon's surface dirt and in theory can be extracted in large quantities to support life.
'It’s very satisfying. This was one of the main objectives of Chandrayaan-1, to find evidence of water on the Moon,' said Dr Mylswamy Annadurai.
The Indian Space Authority lost control of Chandrayaan-1 last month, and aborted the mission ahead of schedule.
However Nasa decided to investigate further the Chandrayaan's data and directed its Deep Impact probe to pass by the Moon on its way to a comet in June this year.
Its instruments also showed strong evidence of water over the surface of the Moon.
Their results suggest the formation of water molecules on the lunar surface is an ongoing process.
The announcement comes two weeks before a Nasa probe will be smashed near the Moon's south pole to see whether it can kick up buried ice.
Over the last decade, astronomers have found some signs of underground ice on the Moon's poles. This latest discovery is quite different. It finds unexpected and pervasive water clinging to the surface of soil, not absorbed into it.
'It is drier than any desert we have here,' Ms Sunshine said.
The water was spotted by spacecraft that either circled the Moon or flew by. All three ships used the same type of instrument that looked at the absorption of a specific wavelength of light that is the chemical signature of only two molecules: water and hydroxyl.
Hydroxyl is one atom of hydrogen with one atom of oxygen, instead of two hydrogen atoms in water.
Scientists assumed water found in Moon rock was due to contamination. Interest in the moon has waned after astronauts visited 40 years ago and called it 'magnificent desolation'
Because of the timing during the daylight when some of that wavelength disappears and some does not, it shows that both hydroxyl and water are present, Ms Sunshine said.
This light wavelength was discovered first by an instrument on the Indian lunar satellite Chandrayaan-1, which stopped operating last month.

Scientists initially figured something was wrong with the instrument because everyone knew the Moon did not have a drop of water on the surface, Pieters said.
'We argued literally for months amongst ourselves to find out where the problem was," Pieters said. Sunshine, who was on the team, had a similar instrument on Nasa's Deep Impact probe, headed for a comet but swinging by the Moon in June. So Deep Impact looked for the water-hydroxyl signature, and found it.
Scientists also looked back at the records of Nasa's Cassini probe, which is circling Saturn. It has the same type instrument and whizzed by the Moon ten years ago. Sure enough, it had found the same thing.
The chance that three different instruments malfunctioned in the same way on three different spaceships is almost zero, so this confirms that it is water and hydroxyl, Pieters said.
'There's just no question that it's there,' Pieters said. 'It's unequivocal.'
Scientists testing lunar samples returned to Earth by astronauts did find traces of water, but they had figured it was contamination from moisture in Earth air, Pieters said.
Three scientists who were not part of the team of discoverers said the conclusion makes sense, with Arizona State University's Ron Greeley using the same word as Pieters: unequivocal.
Lunar and Planetary Institute senior scientist Paul Spudis called it exciting and said it raises the logical question: Where did that water come from?
Pieters figures there are three possibilities: It came from comets or asteroids that crashed into the Moon, those crashes freed up trapped water from below the surface, or the solar wind carries hydrogen atoms that binds with oxygen in the earth.

That final possibility is the one that Sunshine and Pieters both prefer.
If it is the solar wind, that also means that other places without atmosphere in Earth's solar system, such as Mercury or asteroids, can also have bits of water, Sunshine said.
Nasa's Lunar Prospector probe in the 1990s saw a strong hydrogen signal in the far north and south. Some scientists on the mission suggested there could be up to 300 million tonnes of water-ice buried in crater soils that never see sunlight.