by Katie Bowell, Curator of Cultural Interpretation
LCROSS, image courtesy of NASA
Earlier this month, NASA announced that it had discovered water on the moon – “about a dozen, two-gallon bucketsful” according to project scientist Anthony Colaprety. The news comes from preliminary data collected when the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) intentionally crashed into the shadowed region of the Cabeus crater near the moon’s south pole. After the crash, a rocket flew through the debris cloud measuring water and collecting data. According to NASA, “the discovery opens a new chapter in our understanding of the moon.”
Just an interesting note — “water from the moon” is a traditional Indonesian saying that denotes something impossible.
For more information on the discovery, see the article on the NASA website.
