Need to quantify lunar water resources: Scientists

New Delhi, Sep 24 (PTI) Amid euphoria over Chandrayaan-I
finding evidence of water on the moon, scientists Thursday had
a word of caution on the discovery saying there was a need to
quantify the reserves.

Scientists here are elated at the discovery of traces of
water on the moon but at the same time warn of the need to
quantify the resources and also ascertain whether it is fit
for human consumption.

"The results suggest that frost rather than water is
present in the form of a thin film on the lunar surface. The
quantity and its distribution across the moon is still an open
question," K Kasturirangan, former Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) Chairman told PTI.

Kasturirangan, who conceived the Chandrayaan-I mission,
said the findings by a team of NASA scientists was very
significant as it had been eluding researchers for a long
time.

"Ultimately, in the long run if humankind has to go and
inhabit the moon, one of the important requirements is that
you should have adequate water for survival," he said.

Carle Pieters, Principal Investigator of the experiment
to find water on moon, said that water was present in traces
in the form of a thin film on the lunar surface.

Scientists would require one tonne of lunar soil to
extract about one litre of water, Pieters said in the findings
published in 'Science'.

ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair said the discovery was a
pathbreaking event as far as Chandrayaan-1 mission is
concerned. "It is very very significant. So far, no mission
has confirmed the presence of water positively," the top
scientist said.

"It is one of the milestones. We have to quantify it,"
Mylswamy Annadurai, Project Director of Chandrayaan-I, said
from Bangalore.

Annadurai and J N Goswami, Principal Scientist for the
Chandrayaan-I mission, analysed the data received from NASA's
Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3). The M3 data was supplemented by
information gathered by ISRO's Hyper-Spectral Imager and Moon
Impact Probe.

"We just hope that the water is plenty enough and easily
extractable so that you can have purification process for
human use. This is potentially a very big discovery for this
country," Amitabha Ghosh, a NASA scientist involved in the
study of Mars said.

Scientists believe that the findings are significant
particularly because space agencies across the world are
looking forward to use the moon as a base station for future
inter-planetary missions. PTI SKU