New research based on data from the Chandrayaan-3 mission shows that there may be significantly more areas near the moon’s poles where water ice can be found than previously thought. This fact is very important for the coming exploration of our moon.
Water ice beneath the surface of the Moon
Ice may be present a few centimeters below the Moon’s surface in more polar regions than previously thought, due to large but very localized variations in surface temperatures. The results, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, are based on direct measurements made on the lunar surface in 2023 by India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission.
Upcoming long-term exploration (or settlement) of the Moon is likely to depend on the availability of ice to provide water, with the likelihood of lunar ice formation being directly influenced by surface temperature.
The only preliminary direct measurements of lunar surface temperature were made during the Apollo missions in the 1970s. However, these missions landed near the equator, several thousand kilometers from the proposed landing sites for future manned missions, where terrain tilt has little effect on temperature.
Temperature measurement by lunar lander
Durga Prasad and colleagues analyzed temperature data obtained on the Moon’s surface and 10 centimeters below using ChaSTE, a temperature probe experiment on Vikram’s Chandrayaan-3 lander, which landed at the edge of the South Polar region (about 69°S).
The authors found that the temperature at the landing site, on a 6° slope facing the sun, peaked at 355 Kelvin (82 degrees Celsius) and dropped to 105 Kelvin during the lunar night. However, a lower peak temperature of 332 Kelvin (59 degrees Celsius) was measured on a flat area about 1 meter from the landing module.
Dependence of ice presence on the surface inclination angle
The authors used the collected data to build a model of the effect of tilt angle on surface temperature at high lunar latitudes similar to the landing site. The model showed that for slopes facing away from the sun toward the nearest pole, an inclination angle of more than 14° can be cold enough for ice to accumulate close to the surface.
This is similar to conditions at the lunar poles, including the proposed landing sites for NASA’s Artemis manned missions near the Moon’s South Pole. Thus, the authors suggest that areas on the Moon where ice can form may be more numerous and more accessible than previously thought.
According to phys.org
