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NEW DELHI, May 2. Indian scientists, together with American colleagues, have come to the conclusion that the polar craters of the Moon may contain large reserves of ice, according to the website of the Indian organization of space research.
“The study <…> suggests that the amount of subsurface ice in the first few meters is approximately five to eight times greater than at the surface in both the north and south polar regions of the Moon,” the release states.
The space agency noted that the discovery of such significant deposits of underground ice will change the course of future exploration of the Earth's satellite.
“Drilling on the Moon to sample or dredge up this ice will be critical to supporting future missions and ensuring long-term human presence on the lunar surface. Moreover, the study also shows that the area of water ice in the north polar region is twice as large. than in the south polar region, which provides valuable information for mission planning and site selection,” the authors say.
The study was conducted by the Indian Institutes of Technology in Kanpur and Dhanbad together with scientists from the University of Southern California and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Their work supports the hypothesis that the main source of subsurface water ice at the Moon's poles is the release of gases during volcanism during the Imbrian period – 3.8-3.2 billion years ago.
As the agency notes, scientists used data obtained by equipment on board NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), launched in 2009, and the Indian interplanetary station Chandrayaan-2, which entered lunar orbit in 2019.
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