Moon's South Pole Mission Becomes Several Countries Target
- decodedscience.com
Last year scientist William Reach at Nasa's Ames Research Center in California flew Nasa's now-retired Sofia telescope in a plane to study the Moon, finding evidence of hydrogen just outside the landing site now occupied by Chandrayaan-3's Vikram and its rover since they touched down on 23 August.
These recent discoveries of water ice have spurred a renewed interest in exploring the Moon, and in particular, its South Pole.
Aanchal Sharma, a former engineer at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), now working at the University of Trento, Italy stated that India's lander and rover will now allow scientists to test theories that lunar researchers have been proposing about water ice presence in the lunar soil.Â
While Chandrayaan-3's data will be useful, it is later missions that will land closer to the South Pole that scientists are particularly excited about.Â
Here, there are craters known as permanently shadowed regions (PSRs). Sometimes dubbed "craters of eternal darkness", these are angled in such a way that the Sun's rays never reach their innards, meaning they have potentially stored ice for billions of years.Â
The South Pole has more craters than the North Pole, likely a random outcome of how many meteorite impacts have hit the surface, making the South Pole a more attractive target.
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