September 24, 2009--Recently released images from NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper on India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft show two views of the same crater on the side of the moon that faces away from Earth. Infrared light (left) exposes the full shape of the permanently shadowed crater, while a mineral map shows the distribution of water- and hydroxyl-bearing materials.
The images helped confirm there are trace amounts of water on the moon—or at least the ingredients needed to make water. Scientists think moon water is possibly created constantly, as a result of interactions between charged particles from the sun and minerals on the lunar surface.
Image courtesy ISRO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS/Brown Univ.
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