If comets are icy things, and are constantly crashing into the Earth and the Moon, why shouldn't we expect water on the moon?
NASA’s Sofia Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon
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Re: NASA’s Sofia Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon
#12Does this mean that there could be life on the moon?
Re: NASA’s Sofia Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon
#13If comets are icy things, and are constantly crashing into the Earth and the Moon, why shouldn't we expect water on the moon?
I think it's not so much the presence as it is the amount. Given the moon's lack of atmosphere, low gravity, and exposure to solar wind, you might expect the water to quickly boil off into space. But apparently it sticks around for quite a while.
Re: NASA’s Sofia Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon
#14> concentrations of 100 to 412 parts per million – roughly equivalent to a 12-ounce bottle of water – trapped in a cubic meter of soil spread across the lunar surface
This is incredible. Is there speculation that there could be a resevoir of ice underneath the soil? As in, could they dig a well and attempt to melt it (somehow) for collection?
Re: NASA’s Sofia Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon
#15Context: NASA keen to show SOFIA's worth https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00685-2
> SOFIA’s publication rate is now starting to creep up, and last year it was 33 papers. The ultimate goal is 75 to 100 papers per year, says James Jackson, associate director for research at the Universities Space Research Association, the Maryland-based group that manages SOFIA. “More than 150 was a stretch goal,” he says.
I don't think a number is the right target here. Discoveries or theories might be a better goal, not just the number of papers published
Re: NASA’s Sofia Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon
#16It blows my mind a little bit that spectrosocopy is a thing that just happens to be afforded us by physics, and how much less we'd know about the universe if it didn't exist. "Oh, every element has a totally unique signature and all you need to do is look at it to tell what it is, no matter how many miles or light-years away." It's the kind of thing where if it only existed in a sci-fi novel, it would be considered a…
It's actually not all that surprising if you approach it from a different angle.
Consider that light is nothing more than electromagnetic radiation; it is generated or absorbed only by changes in electromagnetic potential.
Now also consider that electron orbitals in molecules are discrete and quantized: you can be in this orbital (with such-and-such potential energy) or in that orbital (with a slightly different potential energy) but you cannot exist between those two orbitals.
Therefore, light can only be absorbed or emitted by a molecule if it can precisely force an electron into a different orbital, which in classical terms means that it only works if light has a particular frequency.
As you might imagine, sticking protons (which generate electron fields) at different positions within a molecule, or equivalently adding protons to an atomic nucleus, will change the permissible orbitals very slightly. Consequently, the light that an atom or molecule can emit or absorb will change as well.
Re: NASA’s Sofia Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is an extension of our eyesight. We see objects as being a specific color because they selectively absorb or reflect particular wavelengths of light. Our tri-color vision system can seem some large band gaps and our brain calls that a color. Spectroscopy just sees smaller gaps, smaller absorption lines.
But all kinds of complicated material-properties can affect the color our eyes see (to my understanding). That alone wouldn't be useful in this way. It's the fact that these signatures exist at an elemental level, and are consistent across all contexts, and can be teased apart at a cosmic scale that makes the technique so powerful.
Spectroscopy isn't simple. There are huge grey areas. Very well-defined signatures often overlap into a blurry mess of lines. Even within a single element, say hydrogen, there can be different signatures for different ionization states. Rather than clean detections there is often much opinion and debate, for years, before spectroscopy evidence is agreed as a legitimate detection of a substance.
Re: NASA’s Sofia Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon
#18Wrong.
Better: "NASA/DLRs Sofia Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon"
Telescope and some of the instruments are powered by German engineering! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_Observatory_for_...
Greetings from Germany ;-)
Re: NASA’s Sofia Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon
#19It blows my mind a little bit that spectrosocopy is a thing that just happens to be afforded us by physics, and how much less we'd know about the universe if it didn't exist. "Oh, every element has a totally unique signature and all you need to do is look at it to tell what it is, no matter how many miles or light-years away." It's the kind of thing where if it only existed in a sci-fi novel, it would be considered a…
What blows my mind is how little spectroscopy fingerprint data is available in the public domain!
To wit, considering how ubiquitous camera sensors are, you'd think that we'd have the ability to do spectrosocopic analysis on our smart phones with a simple/cheap adapter by now.
Re: NASA’s Sofia Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon
#20>We had indications that H2O – the familiar water we know – might be present on the sunlit side of the Moon Doesn't every part of the Moon get some sunlight over the lunar cycle?
Tidal forces from Earth have slowed the Moon's rotation to the point where the same side is always facing the Earth—a phenomenon called tidal locking.