H2O On Moon, ISRO'sChandrayaan mission Says It

by Amitjha | September 23, 2009 at 09:49 pm

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Last day, while listening FM radio, a radio jockey commented that please send a bucket of water to my home, is there home delivery service for that Moon Water.
Well this might be just a light comment on speculation regarding the availability of water on moon, and expenditure made on that mission.In the same mood, he commented on the Yamuna Bachao Movement(save river campaign).
Paradox indeed, we don't have funds to save the dying river, but we have funds to find water on moon.
ISRO India premier space agency declared that its joint mission with NASA, is successfully found traces of water on Moon. Later on in the day NASA will come up with official details about the findings.

India’s maiden Moon mission Chandrayaan-1 has found water on the lunar surface before the project was aborted. ( Watch Video

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Credit for this much-awaited discovery goes to NASAs Moon Minerology Mapper (M3), one of the payloads on board Chandrayaan. The Rs 386-crore craft was launched on October 22 last year and terminated on August 30 following a communication failure. One of the mission’s main goals was to sniff for water.

"It's very satisfying," said Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, the project director of Chandrayaan-1 at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Bangalore. "This was one of the main objectives of Chandrayaan-1, to find evidence of water on the Moon," he told British newspaper “The Times”.

The Moon mapper also made the unexpected discovery that water may still be forming on the surface of the Moon, according to scientists familiar with the mission.

NASA will hold a press conference to brief about the new scientific findings later in the day.

Earlier, neither ISRO nor NASA spoke about the discovery. A spokesman for Brown University had also declined comment, saying there was an embargo. "It will be a major announcement of a major discovery and is something great for Chandrayaan. It will mark a major leap for India’s space programme," he had said.

An ISRO official at Sriharikota has also confirmed that a major announcement was expected on Thursday. "I too have heard something to that effect. Nothing more," he said.

The finding could now trigger another round of Moon missions, and start serious hunt for life in outer space. India has not ruled out the possibility of a manned lunar flight.