Water on the Moon !!!

The Moon Mineralogy Mapper, a reflectance spectrometer, was flown on the Indian’s first lunar
mission, Chandrayaan-1.  Larry Taylor of our PGI was a member of the M3 team, headed by
Carle Pieters, of Brown University.  Most of the members of this team are remote sensing specialists,
with strong physics backgrounds.  However, Larry was chosen for his knowledge of the actual lunar
rocks and soils, sort of the “ground truth” for the observations.  After months of heated discussion
about interpretations and rendering of the spectral data, we all agreed on this great new finding of
“Water on the Moon.”  And after we discovered this evidence, two members of our team, who just happened to be on other mission teams, looked at their data and viola, it was there as well – great confirmation of this unequivocal evidence for water on our Moon.
This water is only a trace, being about 1000 ppm – squeeze a cubic yard of lunar soil, and you get
about one liter of water.  But, at ~$50,000/kg to take anything from Earth to the Moon’s surface,
this is GREAT!!   And this finding has nothing to do with the potential for water-ice in the permanently shadowed craters (~40 K) at the lunar poles. 

http://www.utk.edu/tntoday/2009/09/24/new-research-shows
-water-present-across-the-moons-surface/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/science/space/24moon.html?
_r=2

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090923-moon-water-discovery.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8272144.stm

Recent Publications (2009) from the Planetary Geosciencs Institute.

• Basu Sarbadhikari, A., Day, J.M.D., Liu, Y., Rumble III, D., and Taylor, L.A., 2009.  Petrogenesis
  of olivine-phyric shergottite Larkman Nunatak 06319: Implications for enriched components in
  martian basalts, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 73, 2190-2214.
• Day, J.M.D., Ash, R.D., Liu, Y., Bellucci, J.J., Rumble III, D., McDonough, W.F., Walker, R.J., and
  Taylor, L.A., 2009.  Early formation of evolved asteroidal crust. Nature 457, 179-182. 
  
• Hardgrove, C., Moersch,J. & Whisner, S. 2009.  Thermal imaging of alluvial fans: A new
  technique for remote classification of sedimentary features, Earth and Planetary Science
  Letters 285,124-130.
• Hill, E., Taylor, L.A., Floss, C., & Liu, Y., 2009.  Lunar meteorite LaPaz Icefield 04841:
  Petrology, texture, and impack-chock effects of a low-Ti mare basalt, Meteoritics & Planetary
  Science 44, 87-94.
• Liu , Y., Floss, C., Day, J.M.D., Hill, E., and Taylor, L.A., 2009.  Petrogenesis of lunar mare
  basalt meteorite Miller Range 05035. Meteoritics & Planetary Science 44, 261–284.
• Mayne, R.G., McSween, H.Y., McCoy, T.J. & Gale, A. 2009.  Petrology of the unbrecciated
  eucrites, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 73, 794-819.
• McSween, H.Y. 2009.  Volatility in Martian magmas, Nature (London)458, No.7234, 45.
• McSween, H.Y.,Jr, Taylor, G.J. & Wyatt, M.B. 2009.   Elemental composition of the Martian
  crust, Science 324, 736-739.
• Miller, J., Taylor, L.A., Zeitlin, C., Heilbronn, L., Guetersloh, S., DiGiuseppe, M., Iwata, Y.,
  and Murakami, T., 2009, Lunar soil as shielding against space radiation.
  Radiation Measurement, 1-5.
• Pieters C.M., Taylor, L.A. & 18 other coauthors, 2009.  The Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3)
  on Chandrayaan-1, Current Science 96, 500-505.
• Thaisen, K.G. and Taylor, L.A., 2009.  Meteorite fusion crust variability, Meteoritics & Planetary
  Science 44, 871-878.