Yes, There's Ice on the Moon-But How Much, and What Use Is It?

摘要

When a spent rocket booster slammed into the frigid, inky shadow of a lunar crater last month, it sent up a slightly damp plume of dust, NASA scientists reported last week. "We found water, a significant amount of water," Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Principal Investigator Anthony Colaprete of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, said at a press conference.rnAfter several decades of controversy, scientists now know that over billions of years, water can collect as ice in some of the coldest places in the solar system. Whether there's enough lunar water ice for future astronauts to drink or turn into rocket fuel, however, remains to be seen.