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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 (2012) from the Planetary Geosciencs Institute.

  • Day, J.M.D., Walker, R.J., Ash, R.D., Liu, Y., Rumble, D., Irving, A.J., Goodrich, C.A., Tait, K., McDonough, W.F., and Taylor, L.A., 2012. Origin of Graves Nunataks 06128 and 06129, brachinites, and brachinite-like achondrites by partial melting of volatile-rich primitive parent bodies. Geochimica Et Cosmochimica Acta, 81, 94-128.
  • Ichimura, A.S., Zent, A.P., Quinn, R.C., Sanchez, M.R., Taylor, L.A., 2012.  Hydroxyl (OH) production on airless planetary bodies: Evidence from H+/D+ ion-beam experiments Earth and Planetary Science Letters 345–348, 90–94.
  • Ichimura, A.S., Zent, A.P., Quinn, R.C., Sanchez, M.R., Taylor, L.A., 2012.  Supplementary Material for Hydroxyl (OH) production on airless planetary bodies: Evidence from H+/D+ ion-beam experiments Earth and Planetary Science Letters 345–348.
  • Lefort, A.P.D, D.M. Burr, R.A. Beyer, and A.D. Howard (2012) Inverted fluvial features in the Aeolis–Zephyria Plana, Western Medusae Fossae Formation, Mars: evidence for post-formation modification. J. Geophys. Res.-Planets, 117, E03007, doi:10.1029/2011JE004008.
  • Liu, Y., Guan, Y., Zhang, Y., Rossman, G.R., Eiler, J.R., and L.A. Taylor, 2012.  Direct measurement of hydroxyl in the lunar regolith and the origin of lunar surface water, Nature Geoscience,  DOI: 10.1038/NGEO1601.
  • Riches, A.V., Day, J.M.D., Walker, W.J., Simonetti, A., Liu, Y., Neal, C.R., and L.A. Taylor, 2012.  Rhenium–Osmium isotope and highly-siderophile-element abundance systematics of angrite meteorites, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 353–354, 208–218.
  • Takir, D. and J.P. Emery 2012. Outer Main Belt asteroids: Identification and distribution of four 3-μm spectral groups. Icarus 219, 641-654.
  • Zhang, A., Taylor, L.A., . R., Wang, R., Li, Q., Li, X., Patchen, A., and Liu, Y.,  2012.
    Thermal history of Apollo 12 granite and KREEP-rich rock:Clues from Pb/Pb ages of zircon in lunar breccia 12013, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 95, 1–14