As NASA prepares to return to the Moon by 2024 as part of its Artemis program, the agency is focusing its efforts on exploring the Moon’s polar regions. These are areas of the Moon which seem to have a lot of water mixed in with the regolith.
Some of these craters are permanently in shadow, and might still have large quantities of water, that’s accessible to human and robotic explorers. This is a critical resource, and the Moon might be just the place to help humanity as it pushes out to explore the rest of the Solar System.
But it might also be an illusion. We really won’t know until we look up close.
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References:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/50-years-ago-lunar-landing-sites-selected
https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1336/what-thickness-depth-of-water-would-be-required-to-provide-radiation-shielding-i
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3480
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/lro-sheds-light-on-lunar-water-movement
https://www.nasa.gov/ames/LCROSS
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/inside-dark-polar-moon-craters-water-not-as-invincible-as-expected-scientists-argue
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/chang-e-landers-a-closer-look
https://www.isro.gov.in/gslv-mk-iii-m1-chandrayaan-2-mission/launch-kit-glance
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2017/1207-koreas-first-lunar-mission.html
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-12-new-lunar-science-technology-investigations
https://www.astrobotic.com/2019/7/1/astrobotic-awarded-5-6-million-nasa-contract-to-deliver-autonomous-moon-rover
http://www.planetary.org/explore/projects/planetvac/
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-07/uom-nsu071119.php
https://today.ttu.edu/posts/2019/07/Stories/NASA-picks-Nagihara-instrument-moon-landing