NASA launches satellite on mission to detect water on the moon

Bethany Ehlmannplanetary scientist

Understanding where a rover would drive or an astronaut would walk to examine deposits for science and future resource use will benefit all future landed missions,

Ehlmann said

We believe that the movement of water on the moon is likely driven by the surface temperature. So by measuring the presence and amount of water via the HVM3 instrument and the surface temperature via the LTM instrument we can better understand this relationship,

said University of Oxford planetary scientist Tristram Warren, who worked on developing the LTM instrument

Other than for human exploration, lunar water is also scientifically very exciting. The moon has been orbiting near the Earth almost since the formation of Earth itself. So understanding the origin of the lunar water might help us to understand the origin of water on Earth,

Warren said

Bethany Ehlmannplanetary scientist

The most interesting (aspect) for many is the potentially large amounts of ice in the permanently shadowed regions of the lunar poles. Lunar Trailblazer will peer inside to see how much is at the surface."

But, Ehlmann added

Bethany Ehlmannplanetary scientist

We see tiny amounts of water on sunlit portions of the moon, which is mysterious,

said planetary scientist Bethany Ehlmann, the mission's principal investigator and director of Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies