A day after NASA announced that instruments on board Chandrayaan had confirmed the presence of water on the Moon,ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair said more water had been found than was expected and the pathbreaking discovery could mark the first step towards human settlements on Earths nearest neighbour. The quantity (of water) found is much larger than what was expected,which is a real finding, Nair told reporters in Bangalore. This (finding of water) could be a small step towards human colonisation. Whatever data we had (earlier) indicated that there is no life on Moon. Nair,however,clarified the signatures of water are not in the form of sea,lake or even as a puddle or not even a drop. You cannot pick it up just like that.It is embedded on the surface in the minerals and rocks and we have clear indication that the hydroxil (OH) as water molecules are present on the surface,maybe at least for a few millimetres, he said. Asked if it might be possible to extract this water from the Moons surface,Nair said,Yes,if we have novel techniques,but from one tonne of soil we may get only half a litre of water and that is a real challenge. The ISRO chief said the presence of water on the lunar surface had been detected by Indias own Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on Chandrayaan,a finding that was confirmed by Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3),the NASA instrument that was also on board. While the moon impact probe landed,it took nearly 25 minutes, Nair said. It took some pictures that indicated these water molecules. Another instrument,HYS1,to map minerals,also helped NASAS M3 in finding water. ISRO Principal Scientist J P Goswami said the MIP had picked up strong signals of water particles towards the Moons polar regions from 70 degrees to 80 degrees latitudes. ISRO,he said,had got indications of the finding way back in June,but had waited to make it public because it wanted the findings of such global significance to come out in a scientific journal first. The principal investogator of M3,Carle Pieters,reported the finding of water on the Moon in the journal Science yesterday. She acknowledged that if it werent for them (ISRO and Chandrayaan),we wouldnt have been able to make this discovery. Nair said it was likely that the water on the Moon was formed by the interaction of oxygen present in rocks and soil on the Moon with hydrogen in the form of protons emitted by the sun as a result of nuclear fusion.
