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Solar flares are a fascinating thing and have a profound effect on what astronomers refer to as “space weather.” These events vary with the Sun’s 11-year solar cycle, releasing immense amounts of radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum (from extreme ultraviolet to X-rays) into space. The effects of flares have been observed since time immemorial, which include aurorae at high latitudes (Aurora Borealis and Australis), but have only been the subject of study and prediction for about a century and a half. Still, there is much that remains unknown about these dramatic events.

For instance, flares are known to affect the Sun’s atmosphere, from the visible surface (photosphere) to its outermost layer (corona). However, there are still questions about how these events influence the lower layers of the atmosphere. In a recent study led by the University of Colorado, Boulder, a team of researchers documented the rotation of two very small sunspots of the Sun’s surface (pores) using the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) at Mauna Kea. These pores were linked to a less powerful flare and moved in a way that has never been observed, suggesting that the dynamics of the Sun’s atmosphere are more complex than previously thought.

The study was led by Rahul Yadav, a Research Scientist from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado, Boulder (UC Boulder). He was joined by colleagues from UC Boulder’s Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Solar Observatory (NSO), and the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics of SB RAS. The paper that details their findings, “Photospheric Pore Rotation Associated with a C-class Flare from Spectropolarimetric Observations with DKIST,” recently appeared in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The NSO Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Credit: NSF/NSO/AURA

Solar flares are thought to occur when stored magnetic energy in the Sun’s atmosphere accelerates charged particles in the surrounding plasma. They occur in active regions and are often accompanied by a significant amount of plasma being ejected into space – a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) – and the release of accelerated particles – a Solar Particle Event (SPE). These can play havoc with satellites in Earth’s orbit, and interfere with radio antennas and electronic grids on the surface, which is why scientists are interested in learning more about them.

Flares are classified according to their strength: B-class is the weakest, C and M-class are slightly more energetic, and X is the strongest. Previous studies have shown how intense solar flares can lead to large sunspots rapidly rotating and distorting active regions on the Sun’s surface. But as Dr. Yadav explained in an NSO press release, what they observed was quite unexpected. “[T]his study marks the first time that such rotation has been observed on a smaller scale—less than 2,000 kilometers [~1,245 mi] across—associated with a less intense C-class flare,” he said.

In addition, previous observations have found that rotational movements of sunspots occur directly at the flare ribbon, where the most intense emissions occur during a flare event. This time, the team observed a pre-flare rotation located a short distance from the flare ribbon, which suggests that the coupling between different layers of the Sun’s atmosphere during flares may be more complex than previously thought. Yadav and his colleagues suggest that the process they observed is driven by changes in the Lorentz force caused by interactions between solar charged particles (aka. solar wind) and its magnetic fields.

As Prof. Maria Kazachenko, an NSO scientist and co-author of the study, explained:

“As the magnetic field lines in the corona reorganize, they could induce changes in the lower atmosphere, leading to the observed rotation. This discovery adds a new dimension to our understanding of the complex magnetic interactions that occur during solar flares.”

This animation shows the temporal evolution of a solar flare region and the surrounding sunspots/pores as observed by the VBI instrument on the Inouye Solar Telescope. Credit: NSO–NSF

The unique observations the team made using the Inouye telescope offer new insights into the mechanisms through which solar flares influence the lower layers of the Sun’s atmosphere. For example, past observations have revealed much about sunspot rotations that occurred during more powerful flares (M—or X-class). However, the Inouye data revealed that similar rotational movements can occur with less intense flares and on smaller scales. These findings could lead to new research avenues and help refine our models of solar activity.

This will have implications for the growing constellations of telecom, research, internet, and Earth observation satellites in Earth’s orbit. Predicting space weather, which affects everything in the Solar System to the very edge of the Heliosphere, is also important for long-duration missions in space. For astronauts working on the Moon and Mars and transiting through deep space, knowing more about flare activity will help mitigate the risk of radiation exposure.

Further Reading: NSO, AJL

The post High-Resolution Images of the Sun Show How Flares Impact the Solar Atmosphere appeared first on Universe Today.

Why does this large crater on Mercury have two rings and a smooth floor?

When you get close to a black hole, things can get pretty intense. The tremendous gravity can squeeze gas to ionizing temperatures, and fierce magnetic fields can accelerate plasma into jets speeding at nearly the speed of light. That’s a lot of power, and wherever there is power someone will figure out how to harness it.

Back in 1969 Roger Penrose noted that you could theoretically extract energy from a black hole simply by dumping garbage into it. The idea was to pack a spaceship full of junk, fly really close to a black hole so that you travel within the region of strongly twisted space known as the ergosphere, then simply dump your trash. The trash gets consumed by the black hole and your spaceship gets a boost of energy. No need to reduce, reuse, recycle, just toss it down the cosmic hole.

How to turn trash into energy. Credit: Atomic Rockets, adapted from Misner, Thorne and Wheeler

While this should work in principle, the engineering needed to carry it off would be challenging, and harnessing energy from a fast-moving rocket wouldn’t be very efficient. Fortunately there should be another way, just using electromagnetic waves. In 1971 Yakov Zeldovich demonstrated how a rotating black hole could amplify electromagnetic waves. Essentially if you beam light toward a rotating black hole, some of the light will be ampified due to the frame dragging of gravity.

At least in theory.

Therein lies the problem. While all of this is theoretically sound, we don’t have a spare black hole lying around to prove it. Luckily the Zeldovich effect works for more than just black holes. Zeldovich showed that the effect should work for any rotating body that absorbs a bit of the energy aimed at it. So you should be able to bounce light against a rotating cylinder and see the effect. No black hole needed. The only problem is that the cylinder would need to rotate at relativistic speeds and the effect would be tiny. Then in 2020 a team showed how a similar effect worked with sound waves. They beamed low-frequency sound waves into an absorptive rotating disk and measured an increase in acoustic energy, proving the Zeldovich effect worked for sound.

Measuring the electromagnetic Zeldovich effect. Credit: Braidotti, et al

Now the team is back with a new paper showing the effect with electromagnetic waves.[^4] The way they did it was to adapt a resonant circuit. The circuit could focus an oscillating magnetic wave through a through an aluminum cylinder. By itself the cylinder would act as a simple resistor and dampen the magnetic field, but when the team rotated the cylinder in a particular way the magnetic field was amplified just as Zeldovich predicted. Since aluminum isn’t magnetic, the isn’t due to some dynamo effect. Thus the team could demonstrate it is a new effect.

So we now know rotating bodies, including black holes, can amplify electromagnetic fields. What’s also interesting about this experiment is how surprisingly straight forward it is. The design is similar to an induction generator used in wind turbines. The experiment could have been done decades ago, it’s just that no one had thought of it before. Sometimes the answer to a scientific question is right in front of you.

Reference: Braidotti, M. C., et al. “Amplification of electromagnetic fields by a rotating body.” Nature Communications 15.1 (2024): 5453.

The post Researchers Mimic Extracting Energy From Black Holes in the Lab appeared first on Universe Today.

SpaceX's Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station on Sept. 26 will be a rescue mission of sorts, bringing up empty seats for two NASA astronauts currently in space without a ride home.

Canada's Avro Arrow supersonic jet was suddenly canceled in 1959, a controversial decision that benefited NASA. How is Canada preserving the few pieces of the aircraft that remain?

A NASA astronaut and two record-setting Russian cosmonauts are set to head back to Earth on Monday (Sept. 23), and you can watch their homecoming live.

The autumnal equinox brings fall to the Northern Hemisphere today as the sun passes directly over the equator at noon. But are day and night actually equal length today?

Earth’s average global temperatures have been steadily increasing since the Industrial Revolution. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), Earth has been heating up at a rate of 0.06 °C (0.11 °F) per decade since 1850 – or about 1.11 °C (2 °F) in total. Since 1982, the average annual increase has been 0.20 °C (0.36 °F) per decade, more than three times as fast. What’s more, this trend is projected to increase by between 1.5 and 2 °C (2.7 to 3.6 °F) by mid-century, possibly more! This is a direct consequence of burning fossil fuels, which has increased exponentially since the mid-19th century.

Depending on the extent of temperature increases, the impact on Earth’s habitability could be catastrophic. In a recent study, a team of scientists examined how temperature increases are a long-term issue facing advanced civilizations and not just a matter of fossil fuel consumption. As they argue, rising planetary temperatures could be an inevitable result of the exponential growth of energy consumption. Their findings could have serious implications for astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

The study was conducted by Amedeo Balbi, an Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Universita di Roma Tor Vergata, and Manasvi Lingam, an Assistant Professor with the Department of Aerospace, Physics and Space Sciences and the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the Florida Institute of Technology (Florida Tech). The paper detailing their findings, “Waste Heat and Habitability: Constraints from Technological Energy Consumption,” recently appeared online and is being reviewed for publication in the journal Astrobiology.

This chart shows the meteorological summer (June, July, and August) temperature anomalies each year since 1880. Credit: NASA’s Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin

The idea that civilizations will eventually overheat their planet harkens back to the work of Soviet scientist Mikhail I. Budyko. In 1969, he published a groundbreaking study titled “The effect of solar radiation variations on the climate of the Earth,” where he argued that “All the energy used by man is transformed into heat, the main portion of this energy being an additional source of heat as compared to the present radiation gain. Simple calculations show that with the present rate of growth of using energy the heat produced by man in less than two hundred years will be comparable with the energy coming from the Sun.”

This is a simple consequence of all energy production and consumption invariably producing waste heat. While this waste heat is only a marginal contribution to global warming compared to carbon emissions, long-term projections indicate that this could change. As Lingam related to Universe Today via email:

“The current contribution of waste heat to a rise in global temperature is minimal. However, if waste heat production proceeds on an exponential trajectory for the next century, a further 1 degree Celsius (1.8 F) rise in temperature may stem from waste heat, independent of an enhanced greenhouse effect because of fossil fuels. If the waste heat generation maintains its exponential growth over centuries, we show that it can eventually lead to a complete loss of habitability and the demise of all life on Earth.”

The Dyson Sphere is a fitting example of waste heat resulting from the exponential growth of an advanced civilization. In his original proposal paper, “Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation,” Freeman Dyson argued how the need for more habitable space and energy could eventually drive a civilization to create an “artificial biosphere which completely surrounds its parent star.” As he described, these megastructures would be detectable to infrared instruments due to the “large-scale conversion of starlight into far-infrared radiation,” meaning they would radiate waste heat to space.

“The heating we explore in our paper results from the conversion of any form of energy and is an unavoidable consequence of the laws of thermodynamics,” added Balbi, who was the study’s lead author. “For present-day Earth, this heating represents only a negligible fraction of the warming caused by the anthropogenic greenhouse effect. However, if global energy consumption continues to grow at its current rate, this effect could become significant within a few centuries, potentially impacting Earth’s habitability.”

To determine how long it would take for advanced civilizations to reach the point where they would render their home planet uninhabitable, Balbi and Lingam crafted theoretical models based on the Second Law of thermodynamics (as it applies to energy production). They then applied this to planetary habitability by considering the circumsolar habitable zone (CHZ) – i.e., the orbits where a planet would receive sufficient solar radiation to maintain liquid water on its surface.

“We adapted the calculation of the habitable zone, a standard tool in exoplanetary studies. Essentially, we incorporated an additional source of heating—stemming from technological activity—alongside the stellar irradiation,” said Balbi. Another key factor they considered is the exponential growth rates of civilizations and their energy consumption, as predicted by the Kardashev Scale. Using humanity as a template, we see that global energy consumption rates went from 5,653 terawatt-hours (TWh) to 183,230 TWh between 1800 and 2023.

This trend was not only exponential but accelerated over time, similar to population growth in the same period (1 billion in 1800 to 8 billion in 2023). Balbi and Lingam extrapolated this trend to measure the implications for habitability and determine the maximum lifespan of an advanced civilization once it has entered a period of exponential growth. Ultimately, they concluded that the maximum lifetime of technospheres is about 1000 years, provided that they experience an annual growth rate of about 1% throughout the period of interest.

Humanity’s energy consumption has experienced accelerated and exponential growth in the past two centuries. Credit: OurWorldInData.org/Energy Institute – Statistical Review of World Energy (2024)

These findings, said Balbi, have implications for humanity and in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI):

“Our results indicate that the effect of waste heat could become substantial not only in Earth’s future but also in the development of any hypothetical technological species inhabiting planets around other stars. Consequently, considering this constraint could influence how we approach the search for technologically advanced life in the universe and how we interpret the outcomes of such searches. For instance, it may offer a partial explanation for the Fermi paradox.”

Balbi and Lingam also stress how these results present some possible recommendations for how we could avoid rendering our planet uninhabitable. Once again, there are implications for SETI since any solution we can envision is likely to have already been implemented by another advanced species. Said Balbi:

“Although our paper focuses on physics rather than solutions to societal challenges, we envision a few scenarios that could help a technological species mitigate the constraints of waste heating and delay its onset. A sufficiently advanced civilization might use technology to counteract heating, such as employing stellar shielding.”

“Alternatively, they could relocate much of their technological infrastructure off-world, moving into space. Such mega-engineering projects would have significant implications for our search for technosignatures. A less ambitious but perhaps more feasible approach would be to reduce energy consumption by slowing growth. Of course, we cannot predict which of these options is the most plausible.”

Further Reading: arXiv

The post Advanced Civilizations Will Overheat Their Planets Within 1,000 Years appeared first on Universe Today.

In late June, the Chang'e 6 lunar lander returned to Earth with samples of the moon. Now, the first paper about these samples has been published.

On Episode 129 of This Week In Space, Rod and Tariq talk with Pascal Lee about his Mars Simulation Base in the Arctic.

NASA is seeking the public's help for innovative solutions to help Artemis astronauts navigate in and around the lunar south pole.

Have you ever seen the Man in the Moon?

Scientists have found a group of faults near the moon's south pole that could pose seismic hazards for NASA's Artemis Program of lunar exploration that seeks to establish a presence in the region.

Black holes often appear in science fiction movies, largely because elements of their existence are still a mystery. They have fascinating impacts on the surrounding region of space too with distortions in space and time high on the list. A team of astronomers have found a supermassive black hole with twin jets blasting out an incredible 23 million light years, the longest yet. To put this into context, if you lined up 140 Milky Way galaxies side by side, then that’s the length of the jet! 

The presence of mass in the Universe distorts space-time in its vicinity and the more massive, the greater the distortion. Black holes are regions where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light can escape. They form when a massive star runs out of fuel in the core and collapses under its own gravity. The process creates a point of infinite density known as a singularity. Surrounding the singularity at a distance that depends on the properties of the progenitor star, is the event horizon. If matter of any sort, even a passing spacecraft, gets dragged in through the event horizon then it is never able to escape. 

After the death of a massive, spinning star, a disk of material forms around the central black hole. As the material cools and falls into the black hole, new research suggests that detectable gravitational waves are created. Ore Gottlieb

One of the properties of a black hole are powerful jets, high speed streams of particles ejected from the regions around a black hole. The material ejected never quite reaches the event horizon but instead has been ejected from within the accretion disk. The magnetic fields of a black hole and the rotation of the disks of heated gas and dust can launch jets from the polar regions. They can travel at speeds near the speed of light and can shoot across thousands and millions of kilometres of space. The exact mechanisms of the jets are still not well understood. 

Astronomers observing with LOFAR (the Low Frequency Array) radio system spotted a jet so massive that its the equivalent of 140 Milky Way galaxies lined up side by side! For comparison the jet emanating from Centaurus A at the centre of our Galaxy spans about 10 Milky Way’s! It’s been nicknamed Porphyrion after the mythological giant in Greek culture. Dating back to a time when the universe was 6.3 billion years old, the jet has been found to be producing power equivalent to trillions of Suns!

The LOFAR ‘superterp’, part of the core of the extended telescope located in the Netherlands. Credit: LOFAR/ASTRON

The team that have studied the jet suggest that if giant jets like this were common in the early universe then they may well have been an influential force in the formation of galaxies. Modern jets seen in the nearby universe (and therefore at a later era in the evolution of the universe) seem to be much smaller by comparison. The conclusion is that perhaps the giant jets would have connected and fed energy and material to other nearby galaxies, driving their evolution. 

The survey undertaken by LOFAR revealed more than 10,000 of these megajets. Previous studies revealed only a few hundred large jets suggesting they were more rare but this latest research shows otherwise. It was a real labour of love though as the team searched radio images by eye, used machine-learning tools to scan the images and even enlisted citizen scientists around the world to help. Their paper was published in the Astronomy and Astrophysical journal. 

What of Porphyrion? The team followed up with observations with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in Kitt Peak and the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to reveal the host galaxy 7.5 billion light years away. 

Source : Gargantuan Black Hole Jets Are Biggest Seen Yet

The post Astronomers Find the Longest Black Hole Jets Ever Seen appeared first on Universe Today.

Global internet access does seem like a worthy enterprise yet the rise of satellite megaconstellations there is a danger of the night sky becoming ruined. Astronomers the world over are keeping an eye on the impact these satellites are having on the night sky. Until recently the concerns have been relating to the reflection of visible light against the sky hindering night time observations. A recent study shows that the second-generation Starlink satellites leak 32 times the radio signal than the previous models. Are their presence putting at risk the radio sky now too?

The starlink satellites are the brainchild of SpaceX to provide high-speed broadband internet to every corner of the planet. The constellation of satellites consists of thousands of small satellites measuring just 2.8 metre in length. They form a network that can transmit data quickly around the planet offering high speed internet which is far more reliable than traditional satellite systems. The goal is to provide high speed connectivity to places where fibre or traditional infrastructure is difficult or too costly. As it expands though there will be more and more satellites in orbit. 

An artist’s conception shows Starlink satellites in orbit. Credit: SpaceX

It’s not just SpaceX that is causing the problem though. Since 2019 other companies have been getting in on the act with organisations like OneWeb too having launched hundreds of thousands of satellites. The plan is for organisations like these to launch in excess of 100,000 satellites. If the rise in megaconstellations like these rise then the emissions (visible, radio or otherwise) could very easily make astronomical observations from the surface of Earth difficult if not impossible.

During the last year, observations with the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) revealed that the Starlink satellites were emitting radio waves. Astronomers were concerned that the unintentional waves could have a negative impact on radio observations. As SpaceX expand their network with a second generation of satellites, their ‘V2-mini’ modules the risks seem to be increasing. New LOFAR observations have shown that the new satellites are producing up to 32 times more radio emissions than the earlier satellites! Anyone observing the universe in radio waves at the time of their passing is likely to receive a blinding radio signal that would ruin any observations. 

The LOFAR ‘superterp’, part of the core of the extended telescope located in the Netherlands. Credit: LOFAR/ASTRON

Putting the radio emissions into context, the new satellites are emitting radio waves 10 million times brighter than that detected by the faintest astronomical object detected by LOFAR so far! The discovery highlights the need for control and regulations around satellites and their emissions, intended or otherwise. Left unchecked then the future of astronomical observations will be highly compromised.

ASTRON operates LOFAR which is one of the most sensitive low frequency telescopes in the world. It’s only possible because it operates from the Netherlands which is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe. Despite the high population density, the national organisations of Netherlands co-operate and consult with ASTRON to safeguard the future of radio astronomy. We just need other organisations like SpaceX and OneWeb to jump on board to ensure our view of the universe isn’t lost for ever. 

Source : Second-Generation Starlink Satellites Leak 30 Times More Radio Interference, Threatening Astronomical Observations

The post Second Generation Starlinks are 32 Times Brighter in Radio Wavelengths appeared first on Universe Today.

A new covid-19 variant called XEC may spread more easily than past variants, but current vaccines are still effective against it

A new covid-19 variant called XEC may spread more easily than past variants, but current vaccines are still effective against it

Ted Colbert will no longer be CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, according to media reports.

Cards Against Humanity is suing SpaceX for $15 million because the rocket company allegedly damaged land that CAH owns.

When you look at the Moon, you don’t see any water on its surface. That doesn’t mean there isn’t any. In fact, there’s a lot of “wetness” on the Moon, but it’s in places and forms we can’t see. Understanding where all those resources are is the subject of a study based on NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) data taken from aboard the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.

The analysis performed by a team led by Planetary Science Institute senior scientist Roger Clark shows that there are many sources of water and a group of chemicals called “hydroxyls” (OH). Water lies hidden in ice deposits in shaded areas, and inside enriched rocks.

Image showing the distribution of surface ice (which could supply water) at the Moon’s south pole (left) and north pole (right), detected by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument. Credits: NASA

Hydroxyls are interesting. They form as solar protons interact with electrons on the Moon’s surface. That creates hydrogen atoms which hook up with oxygen atoms found in silicates and other oxygen-bearing molecules in the lunar regolith. Together, the hydrogen and oxygen make hydroxyl molecules, which are a component of water. While it would take some work, mining those “raw materials” for water on the Moon could be a huge boost for future crewed missions, according to Clark.

“Future astronauts may be able to find water even near the equator by exploiting these water-rich areas. Previously, it was thought that only the polar region, and in particular, the deeply shadowed craters at the poles were where water could be found in abundance,” said Clark. “Knowing where water is located not only helps to understand lunar geologic history but also where astronauts may find water in the future.”

How They Identified Lunar Water Sources

Searching out sources of lunar water requires special instruments. This is where the Chandrayaan mission and NASA’s mineralogy mapper data came in handy. Clark and his team zeroed in on a set of data taken by the lander’s imaging spectrometer from 2008-2009. This infrared spectroscopy data contains the spectral fingerprints of both water and hydroxyl in sunlight reflected from the Moon’s surface. The M3 instrument dissected the light into 85 different visible and infrared “colors”. That’s how they were able to spot the distinctive hints of water and hydroxyls across much of the Moon.

The team also looked at the location and geologic contexts of water and hydroxyl distribution. They also had to take into account the “lifetime” of these resources on the Moon. Interestingly, water gets slowly destroyed over time. Hydroxyl, however, lasts much longer. So, for example, if a crater smacks into the lunar surface, the “wet” rocks it “digs up” will lose that content over time through the action of the solar wind. The result is a diffuse layer or “aura” of hydroxyls that remain behind. In other places, solar wind protons that collide with the surface contribute to a thin layer or “patina” of hydroxyls on the surface. The hydroxyls last much longer and exist on the Moon up to millions of years.

“Putting all the evidence together, we see a lunar surface with complex geology with significant water in the sub-surface and a surface layer of hydroxyl. Both cratering and volcanic activity bring water-rich materials to the surface, and both are observed in the lunar data,” Clark said.

Near-infrared image of the Moon’s surface by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper on the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 mission. The mapper helped identify water- and hydroxyl-rich areas on the lunar surface. Image credit: ISRO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Brown Univ./USGS Using Precious Lunar Resources

Lunar rocks may well help supply water to future visitors to the Moon. There are two kinds of rocks there. The dark mare rocks are mainly basaltic (like Hawaiian lava). The other type is the anorthosite rock. It exists in various places, including the lunar highlands. The anorthosites are relatively “wet” while the basalts remain very dry. The two rock types also contain hydroxyls bonded to different minerals.

The water-rich anorthosites should be a target for harvesting by lunar astronauts. To get a good supply, you have to heat the rocks and soils. The result of that process could be a long-lasting water supply. You could also get it by using methods to create chemical reactions that liberate hydroxyl and combine four hydroxyls to create oxygen and water.

Of course, a more immediate source lies at the poles. That’s where ice lies hidden inside shaded crater walls or under the surface, preserved for millions of years. That source is likely more easily harvested, but you still have to transport the water to other lunar regions. The downsides of getting water from rocks are the expense and the energy required to heat them for extraction. NASA and other agencies (such as the Chinese space agency) are looking at all the methods of producing supplies for upcoming missions. Studying the locations of ice deposits and hydroxyls is just one part of a larger “search for water” that will benefit future lunar bases.

For More Information

Sources of Water and Hydroxyl are Widespread on the Moon
The Global Distribution of Water and Hydroxyl on the Moon as Seen by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3)

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