Brown University | 2019 Oct 10
New research sheds light on the ages of ice deposits reported in the area of the Moon’s south pole — information that could help identify the sources of the deposits and help in planning future human exploration.
The discovery of ice deposits in craters scattered across the Moon’s south pole has helped to renew interest in exploring the lunar surface, but no one is sure exactly when or how that ice got there. A new study published in the journal Icarus suggests that while a majority of those deposits are likely billions of years old, some may be much more recent.Shackleton Crater, the floor of which is permanently shadowed from the sun, appears
to be home to deposits of water ice. A new study sheds light on how old these and
other deposits on the Moon's south pole might be. Credit: NASA/GSFC/ASU
Ariel Deutsch, a graduate student in Brown University’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences and the study’s lead author, says that constraining the ages of the deposits is important both for basic science and for future lunar explorers who might make use of that ice for fuel and other purposes.
“The ages of these deposits can potentially tell us something about the origin of the ice, which helps us understand the sources and distribution of water in the inner solar system,” Deutsch said. “For exploration purposes, we need to understand the lateral and vertical distributions of these deposits to figure out how best to access them. These distributions evolve with time, so having an idea of the age is important.” ...
Analyzing the Ages of South Polar Craters on the Moon: Implications for the Sources and
Evolution of Surface Water Ice ~ Ariel N. Deutsch, James W. Head III, Gregory A. Neumann
- Icarus (online 30 Sep 2019) DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2019.113455