Mon, Oct 27, 2008
Images Reveal No Icy Patches Inside Shackleton
The bottom of a lunar crater that lies within permanent shadows
held the promise of finding water on the moon until recent images
revealed no sign of bright icy patches indicative of a sheet of
frozen water.
Always in shadow, the Shackleton crater near the moon's south
pole has kept some experts hopeful of finding water ice on the
moon, but photos recently taken by Japan's KAGUYA lunar explorer
satellite have led Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency scientists to
conclude that there are no exposed ice deposits in the
crater.
The Terrain Camera (TC), a 10-m resolution stereo camera onboard
KAGUYA, succeeded in photographing the inside of the crater, which
was faintly lit by sunlight scattered from the upper inner wall
near the rim.
Led by Junichi Haruyama, a team of JAEA experts analyzed images
and data retrieved by the TC. Temperature readings were estimated
at -297 degrees Fahrenheit, the Science journal reported, but there
was no "conspicuous brightness" indicative of a sheet of pure water
ice.
Previous lunar missions did not have the ability to capture
images within the dark Shackleton crater, but scientists were
hopeful of the discovery based on other indications.
In 1994 the Clementine lunar orbiter gave indications some
scientists interpreted to be water ice, and 1998's Lunar Prospector
mission detected the presence of hydrogen in the Shackleton
crater.
Haruyama concluded this recent finding does not rule out all
possibility of the presence of ice in the crater, since a small
amount of ice could be mixed in with lunar soil and not show up as
a reflective area on the images.
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