ScienceDaily (Aug. 29, 2012) — Small patches of ice could make up at most 5 to 10% of material in walls of Shackleton crater. Scientists using the Mini-RF radar on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have estimated the maximum amount of ice likely to be found inside a permanently shadowed lunar crater located near the moon's south pole. As much as 5 to 10 percent of material, by weight, could be patchy ice, according to the team of researchers led by Bradley Thomson at Boston University's Center for Remote Sensing.
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"These terrific results from the Mini-RF team contribute to the evolving story of water on the moon," says LRO's deputy project scientist, John Keller of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Several of the instruments on LRO have made unique contributions to this story, but only the radar penetrates beneath the surface to look for signatures of blocky ice deposits."
These are the first orbital radar measurements of Shackleton crater, a high-priority target for future exploration. The observations indicate an enhanced radar polarization signature, which is consistent with the presence of small amounts of ice in the rough inner wall slopes of the crater. Thomson and his colleagues reported the findings in a paper recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
"The interior of this crater lies in permanent shadow and is a 'cold trap' -- a place cold enough to permit ice to accumulate," says Mini-RF's principal investigator, Ben Bussey of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "The radar results are consistent with the interior of Shackleton containing a few percent ice mixed into the dry lunar soil."
These findings support the long-recognized possibility that areas of permanent shadow inside polar impact craters are sites of the potential accumulation of water. Numerous lines of evidence from recent spacecraft observations have revised the view that the lunar surface is a completely dry, inhospitable landscape. Thin films of water and hydroxyl have been detected across the lunar surface using several space-borne near-infrared spectrometers. Additionally, orbital neutron measurements indicate elevated levels of near
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"These terrific results from the Mini-RF team contribute to the evolving story of water on the moon," says LRO's deputy project scientist, John Keller of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Several of the instruments on LRO have made unique contributions to this story, but only the radar penetrates beneath the surface to look for signatures of blocky ice deposits."
These are the first orbital radar measurements of Shackleton crater, a high-priority target for future exploration. The observations indicate an enhanced radar polarization signature, which is consistent with the presence of small amounts of ice in the rough inner wall slopes of the crater. Thomson and his colleagues reported the findings in a paper recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
"The interior of this crater lies in permanent shadow and is a 'cold trap' -- a place cold enough to permit ice to accumulate," says Mini-RF's principal investigator, Ben Bussey of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "The radar results are consistent with the interior of Shackleton containing a few percent ice mixed into the dry lunar soil."
These findings support the long-recognized possibility that areas of permanent shadow inside polar impact craters are sites of the potential accumulation of water. Numerous lines of evidence from recent spacecraft observations have revised the view that the lunar surface is a completely dry, inhospitable landscape. Thin films of water and hydroxyl have been detected across the lunar surface using several space-borne near-infrared spectrometers. Additionally, orbital neutron measurements indicate elevated levels of near