WATER UPDATE: --- Moon water and lots of it is expected to be announced at a 2 PM EDT press conference set for Thursday at NASA HQ detailing the results from the The Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) that was abaord the science suite of India's now defuct Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiting spacecraft.Dr. Carle M. Pieters of Brown University, planetary geologist and principal investigator of the M3 instrument, will conduct the press briefing. A recent report published by Nature News hints: “Results soon to be published… will show detailed spectra confirming that, indeed, the polar regions of the moon are chockfull of water-altered minerals.”
After suffering from several technical issues including failure of the star sensors and poor thermal shielding, Chandrayaan stopped sending radio signals on August 29, 2009 shortly after which, India's space agency officially declared the mission over. Chandrayaan operated for 312 days as opposed to the intended two years but the mission achieved 95 percent of its planned objectives.
Many space science experts believe that confirmed water ice on the moon may result in spacefaring nations sending several new probes to the Moon in the near-term years ahead and re-spark national and international efforts to return humans to the lunar surface.
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