More water than was initially thought to be

1998/12/01 Burke, J.D. Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astronomia

In all areas of science we have examples of important findings that have been made for a long time and after many debates and vicissitudes. D.O. We could say that the discovery of the water of the Moon that Burke so well tells us has been resolved this year. A solid project was needed to restart the study of the Moon with minimal development over the years and confirm or cancel the conclusions suggested by the Clementine probe. Lunar Prospector, from the Discovery series, has completed these two works.

As for the second goal I mentioned, Burke's article collects the first data announced last March by the team responsible for Lunar Prospector. However, successive data analyses on current issues usually appear soon, and in this case has also happened. Scientists of the Lunar Prospector mission published last September 3 that the poles of the Moon could contain more water than was initially thought.

In total, taking into account what is in the North and South Pole, there could be about six billion tons of ice, twenty times more than announced at the March press conference. This ice would be placed under a layer of 40 cm (glossy dry) and it is believed that in the north head it can be 15% more than in the furrow.

The analysis of the data obtained with the Lunar Prospector does not reveal the origin of the ice, but if the most probable hypothesis were true, the ice would be brought by comets thrown into the Moon, in which case the water would be almost pure. In favor of all this, it can be affirmed that recent estimates of the amount of ice are compatible with the latest models that calculate the contribution of ice from the comets to the Moon and the amount of ice that has been able to remain in it. In fact, the amount that these models predict is a magnitude greater than or twice that which has been found.

Only one last note. The existence of ice is not the only explanation for the data sent to us by Lunar Prospector. It seems that the rest of explanations appear with less force, but still no one dares to discard it.