Pretty remarkable in terms of making the discovery as this was the first time the beoing 747 mounted telescope had looked at the moon. You can't make those measurements on the surface bc of the...
Pretty remarkable in terms of making the discovery as this was the first time the beoing 747 mounted telescope had looked at the moon. You can't make those measurements on the surface bc of the water vapor in the air, so the fact this first test has found something measurable is quite amazing.
"roughly equivalent to a 12-ounce bottle of water – trapped in a cubic meter of soil spread across the lunar surface"
It doesn't seem super concentrated or anything but it's nice to think there might be more possible landing sites for water utilizing missions. Reading that line about it being 100 times dryer than the sahara desert kind of sobers you up a bit though
Even if the water stuff doesn't wind up being a breakthrough discovery , we're still pointing new things at the moon and finding new stuff! Doesn't get cooler than that imo
I feel a bit guilty for trying to downplay the coolness of the science, here, (it certainly is cool!) I'm mostly referring to my own tendency to interpret these headlines in a very sci-fi way...
I feel a bit guilty for trying to downplay the coolness of the science, here, (it certainly is cool!) I'm mostly referring to my own tendency to interpret these headlines in a very sci-fi way which always seems to be followed by a more sober explanation by someone who knows shit about astrophysics, heh.
So... does that mean a potential moon mission could extract significant amounts of water from the moons surface somehow? "100 times dryer than the sahara" sounds crazy but so does a square meter of the sahara containing 100 12-ounce bottles of water?
So... in what way is this totally unremarkable and doesn't mean anything cool will happen?
Pretty remarkable in terms of making the discovery as this was the first time the beoing 747 mounted telescope had looked at the moon. You can't make those measurements on the surface bc of the water vapor in the air, so the fact this first test has found something measurable is quite amazing.
It doesn't seem super concentrated or anything but it's nice to think there might be more possible landing sites for water utilizing missions. Reading that line about it being 100 times dryer than the sahara desert kind of sobers you up a bit though
Even if the water stuff doesn't wind up being a breakthrough discovery , we're still pointing new things at the moon and finding new stuff! Doesn't get cooler than that imo
I feel a bit guilty for trying to downplay the coolness of the science, here, (it certainly is cool!) I'm mostly referring to my own tendency to interpret these headlines in a very sci-fi way which always seems to be followed by a more sober explanation by someone who knows shit about astrophysics, heh.
So... does that mean a potential moon mission could extract significant amounts of water from the moons surface somehow? "100 times dryer than the sahara" sounds crazy but so does a square meter of the sahara containing 100 12-ounce bottles of water?
Great answer, thanks!