India’s space agency is attempting to land a spacecraft on the moon’s south pole, a mission that could advance India’s space ambitions and expand knowledge of lunar water ice, potentially one of the moon’s most valuable resources.
Here’s what’s known about the presence of frozen water on the moon – and why space agencies and private companies see it as a key to a moon colony, lunar mining and potential missions to Mars. As early as the 1960s, before the first Apollo landing, scientists had speculated that water could exist on the moon. Samples the Apollo crews returned for analysis in the late 1960s and early 1970s appeared to be dry.
In 2008, Brown University researchers revisited those lunar samples with new technology and found hydrogen inside tiny beads of volcanic glass.
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