For decades, the Moon was thought to be bone-dry. Then in 2009, NASA's LCROSS mission deliberately crashed a probe into the Cabeus crater near the lunar south pole and analyzed the ejecta. The verdict: water ice, in significant quantities.
In 2018, follow-up analysis of data from India's Chandrayaan-1 mission confirmed it definitively: there is widespread water ice at both lunar poles, in craters whose floors have not seen sunlight in billions of years.
How Much Water?
Estimates suggest 600 million metric tons of water ice at the Moon's north pole alone, with similar quantities at the south pole. That is enough to support a permanent human presence β and to be split into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel, dramatically lowering the cost of missions to Mars and beyond.
Why It Matters
- Drinking water for future lunar bases
- Oxygen for breathing
- Rocket fuel β a fully fueled rocket departing the Moon costs a fraction of one departing Earth
- It validates that water and ice are widespread in the inner solar system, not just at Earth
The Hunt Continues
NASA's Artemis program plans to land astronauts near the lunar south pole specifically because of these ice deposits. The first water-ice mining experiments could begin in the late 2020s.
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