NASA radar finds ice on moon's north pole

[Kadie]

NASA radar finds ice on moon's north pole
59 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A US radar launched into space aboard an Indian spacecraft has detected craters filled with ice on the moon's north pole, NASA scientists said Monday.

The US space agency's Mini-SAR radar found more than 40 small craters ranging in size from one to nine miles (1.6 to 15 kilometers), each full of water ice.

"Although the total amount of ice depends on its thickness in each crater, it's estimated there could be at least 600 million metric tons of water ice," NASA said in a statement.

The finding came weeks after President Barack Obama put on ice US ambitions to return astronauts to the moon.

The lightweight, synthetic aperture radar's findings "show the moon is an even more interesting and attractive scientific, exploration and operational destination than people had previously thought," said Paul Spudis, lead investigator of the Mini-SAR experiment at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas.

The Mini-SAR has spent the last year mapping the moon's permanently-shadowed polar craters that are not visible from Earth, using the polarization properties of reflected radio waves.

more...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/usindiaspacemoonicenasa

[Faygo Kid]

1. Wow. That means the moon could support a base.

Water means everything. Amazing.

[proteus_lives]

2. Yep.

The Final Frontier starts there.

[Gold Metal Flake]

3. Lets BLOW IT UP and have some more awesome DU threads!

Posts about the Lunar ecosystem and shit!

[mindwalker_i]

4. THAT's where I left my Big Gulp

Nice to know it's still cold.

[Kadie]

6. LOL

:rofl:

[Swamp Rat]

5. WOOHOO!!!!!

:woohoo:

[cbdo2007]

7. That would be cool if it was all shaved ice with all those flavors in it. Yum!