ABOVE: Spots of surface ice at the lunar south pole (left) and north pole (right)
NASA
The moon’s poles are spotted with frost, researchers reported yesterday (August 20) in PNAS. Past studies had hinted that water ice existed on the lunar surface, but the results were often ambiguous. The definitive detection of frost on the moon means it could serve as a source of fresh water for future crewed missions to the moon and give clues to the satellite’s past.
“This idea [of water on the moon] has been around for awhile,” Leslie Gertsch, a geological and mining engineer at the Missouri University of Science and Technology who studies how to extract resources in space, tells Business Insider. “But this study says, ‘yeah, there really does seem to be water ice at the surface of the moon.’”
Study coauthor Shuai Li, a planetary scientist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, ...
