The vast deposits of water ice likely lurking at the moon's poles could be tapped to help spur a sustainable economic and industrial expansion into space, researchers say.
The lunar poles have a unique environment that can harbor water ice within permanently shadowed, super-cold craters. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been front and center in probing these sites with radar — places such as Shackleton crater, an impact feature that lies at the moon's south pole.
The peaks along Shackleton's rim are exposed to almost continuous sunlight, while its interior is forever in shadow.
“For a long time, the debate was what’s going on in Shackleton,” said Paul Spudis, senior staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. He is a team member on LRO’s Miniature Radio Frequency project, or Mini-RF for short. [Latest of the moon from NASA probe]
“What we found by analyzing the reflections of Shackleton was that it was consistent with ice. We’re seeing, effectively, what is a radar-transparent material that looks like ice,” Spudis told SPACE.com here at the 43rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference last week.
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