NASA: There's definitely water on the Moon
October 26, 2020 9:43 AM   Subscribe

NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has confirmed, for the first time, water on the sunlit surface of the Moon. This discovery indicates that water may be distributed across the lunar surface, and not limited to cold, shadowed places. The detection is at Clavius crater, familiar as the location of the moonbase in 2001: A Space Odyssey. posted by Major Clanger (45 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
Are we sure they're not just looking for an excuse to fake landings beachside instead of in the desert?
posted by nickmark at 9:57 AM on October 26, 2020 [5 favorites]


(This is really frickin amazing)
posted by nickmark at 9:58 AM on October 26, 2020 [1 favorite]


We promise you this isn't fake:
Water on the moon.
Astronauts could drink from a lake,
Water on the moon.
We found enough to boil,
Water on the moon.
12 ounces in a cubic metre of soil,
Water on, water on the moon.
posted by oulipian at 10:03 AM on October 26, 2020 [8 favorites]


I, complete non-scientist, am really surprised that we are still learning things this significant about our own moon. I had no idea that it was still that much of a mystery.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:04 AM on October 26, 2020 [4 favorites]


So you're saying there's the potential for whalers on the Moon?
posted by caphector at 10:07 AM on October 26, 2020 [22 favorites]


The detection is at Clavius crater, familiar as the location of the moonbase in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Because of course that's where.
posted by hippybear at 10:09 AM on October 26, 2020 [14 favorites]


I keep reading it as clavdivs and wanting to make a MeFi's Own joke.
posted by nickmark at 10:16 AM on October 26, 2020 [18 favorites]


A rat done bit my sister Nell
And water's on the moon
Her face and arms began to swell
And water's on the moon

I'll see myself out
posted by SystematicAbuse at 10:17 AM on October 26, 2020 [21 favorites]


An Aquafina executive smiles. "Game on, Dasani!"
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:20 AM on October 26, 2020 [1 favorite]


Water on the moon... how did it get there?

(for those who don't get the reference)
posted by SansPoint at 10:21 AM on October 26, 2020 [6 favorites]


> really surprised that we are still learning things this significant about our own moon

earlier this month: scientists discover previously unknown organ inside our own heads (paper) (NYT writeup)
posted by are-coral-made at 10:21 AM on October 26, 2020 [4 favorites]


The detection is at Clavius crater, familiar as the location of the moonbase in 2001: A Space Odyssey.


Writers doing a callback for all the old fans.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 10:25 AM on October 26, 2020 [6 favorites]


nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon's wet
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *getting into swimsuit and picking up pool noodle* moon's wet

(source)
posted by fight or flight at 10:34 AM on October 26, 2020 [31 favorites]


Oh thank you for this. I mean water on the Moon is very cool but so is knowing WTF NASA was vaguetweeting about days ago and then a bunch of people were talking about putting 4G on the moon and I feel like Grampa Simpson being like "Wait, is THAT what this is about...?" Appreciate this post.
posted by jessamyn at 10:41 AM on October 26, 2020 [2 favorites]


So you're saying there's the potential for whalers on the Moon?

Address all complaints to the Monsanto corporation.
posted by traveler_ at 10:46 AM on October 26, 2020


As a comparison, the Sahara desert has 100 times the amount of water than what SOFIA detected in the lunar soil. Despite the small amounts, the discovery raises new questions about how water is created and how it persists on the harsh, airless lunar surface.

Let's colonize the Sahara!!!!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:51 AM on October 26, 2020 [1 favorite]


So you're saying there's the potential for whalers on the Moon?

They ended up in North Carolina, an only slightly less unlikely hockey venue at the time.
posted by gimonca at 10:53 AM on October 26, 2020 [4 favorites]


the agency is eager to learn all it can about the presence of water on the Moon in advance of sending the first woman and next man to the lunar surface in 2024 and establishing a sustainable human presence there by the end of the decade.

What better way to study minute quantities of water than to send two vapor-producing bags of brine and their accompanying support equipment? I really hope we get more missions like VIPER and fewer flags-and-footprints.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:58 AM on October 26, 2020


The detection is at Clavius crater, familiar as the location of the moonbase in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Because of course that's where.


ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS

EXCEPT FREDRICK

WAIT, YOU JUST CALL HIM "MOON"???

DO YOU CALL YOUR FRIENDS JUST "MAN"??

GOOD GRIEF NO WONDER IT'S TAKEN YOU SO LONG TO GET TO SPACE



MONOLITH OUT
posted by GuyZero at 10:58 AM on October 26, 2020 [13 favorites]


Let's colonize the Sahara!!!!

The population of the Sahara Desert is estimated to be 2.5 million people.
posted by GuyZero at 11:01 AM on October 26, 2020 [8 favorites]


Well I guess that explains this:

Pres. Trump is fighting for YOU! Here are some of his priorities for a 2nd term:

*Establish Permanent Manned Presence on The Moon
*Send the 1st Manned Mission to Mars
*Build World’s Greatest Infrastructure System
*Establish National High-Speed Wireless Internet Network

posted by gottabefunky at 11:17 AM on October 26, 2020


Moonsanto, surely.
posted by migurski at 11:24 AM on October 26, 2020 [5 favorites]


Came in here looking for a Gil Scott-Heron reference. Did not leave disappointed.
posted by fuse theorem at 11:27 AM on October 26, 2020 [5 favorites]


"Elena: Oh, we're going home. We have just spent three months calibrating the new antennae at Tchalinko... And what about you?

Dr. Floyd: I'm just on my way up to Clavius."
posted by clavdivs at 11:28 AM on October 26, 2020 [3 favorites]


Let's colonize the Sahara!!!!

France and Spain beat you to it.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:30 AM on October 26, 2020 [4 favorites]


What I"m not seeing in anything is if we know what phase the water is in. Is this very small amounts of liquid water, or is it ice? (I'm assuming ice, but I know it can get toasty in direct sunlight without atmosphere). Or can we detect that with IR? (I would assume no, but every time I assume no about what you can do with IR I hear from some old school organic chemist that yes, you can detect that, you just compare this band and this band and blah blah blah.)
posted by Canageek at 12:05 PM on October 26, 2020 [1 favorite]


Let's colonize the Sahara!!!!

This is your regular reminder that anywhere on earth, no matter how harsh or inhospitable, is a better candidate for permanent human settlement than anywhere else in the solar system. Marianas Trench? Sahara Desert? Antartica? Five miles underground? It is safer, easier, and cheaper to establish a permanent settlement in any of these locations than on the moon, or mars, or anywhere else.

On top of that, no matter how bad global warming gets, it will still be easier to keep people alive on earth than anywhere else.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:06 PM on October 26, 2020 [5 favorites]


anywhere on earth, no matter how harsh or inhospitable, is a better candidate for permanent human settlement than anywhere else in the solar system.

Not if you need to do zero-g or low-g manufacturing.

Also you can't blow the moon into deep space with a nuclear explosion without first having a moonbase.
posted by GuyZero at 12:08 PM on October 26, 2020 [8 favorites]


TANSTAAFL. But apparently TIWOTSOTM.

What next, we find out that MAHS HAZ A COAR OF IZE!?
posted by bartleby at 12:53 PM on October 26, 2020


Is this very small amounts of liquid water, or is it ice?

Neither. The reports say these molecules of water are stretched so far apart they are not in either state. Also they contain tiny bits of glass which is why they don’t evaporate. I know it sounds as if I’m delirious.
posted by Phanx at 12:57 PM on October 26, 2020 [4 favorites]


ctrl + f "ben shapiro"
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:19 PM on October 26, 2020 [3 favorites]


"Well, certainly no one could have been unaware of the very strange stories floating around before we left. Rumors about something being dug up on the Moon. I never gave these stories much credence, but particularly in view of some of other things that have happened, I find them difficult to put out of my mind."
posted by doctornemo at 1:39 PM on October 26, 2020 [3 favorites]


Hmm.. it will probably end up being too difficult to purify it enough for drinking or hydroponics. But it will probably end up being useful for cement or even possibly igloo construction, greatly reducing the amount of construction materials we need to send for a moon base.
posted by sexyrobot at 1:50 PM on October 26, 2020


DO YOU CALL YOUR FRIENDS JUST "MAN"??

ALL THE TIME MAN and could you please stop shouting, we have a special day for that and sorry, you just missed it.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:01 PM on October 26, 2020 [1 favorite]


Imagine how hard it would be to extract this water in usable amounts if hard vacuum and unfiltered sunlight can't do it.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:29 PM on October 26, 2020 [2 favorites]




I blame Chairface.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 3:33 PM on October 26, 2020 [2 favorites]


Now if they found some bourbon on the moon, then they'd really have something!
posted by newdaddy at 4:54 PM on October 26, 2020


Major Clanger's only going to be really excited if they find soup on the moon.
posted by wilberforce at 5:24 PM on October 26, 2020 [2 favorites]


Sleigh exhaust!
posted by clavdivs at 6:17 PM on October 26, 2020 [4 favorites]


Either Monoliths don't have lower-case or they only communicate through 80's retro-computers that also have no lower case

Or even more retro-er... see cortex's FPP from earlier in the year, or possibly a million aeons ago in US-politics-time, about a 1930 teletype machine converted to function as a Linux terminal.
posted by XMLicious at 7:29 PM on October 26, 2020


could you please stop shouting

I got to see 2001 in the theater when they re-released it back in the 90's. The scene with the obelisk on the moon is terrifying in a way you can't reproduce at home. Kubrick used volume as a special effect. It's all just breathing for a long time at moderate volume, almost tricking you into believing it's your own. When the sunlight falls on the stone it is SO LOUD. THE MOST LOUD. HORRIFYINGLY PAINFULLY LOUD. Everyone in the theater immediately covered their ears as hard as they could and watched in horror as the astronauts, with their helmets on, couldn't.
posted by sexyrobot at 7:33 AM on October 27, 2020 [4 favorites]


Something something Gurren Lagann.
posted by ryoshu at 11:41 AM on October 27, 2020


An Aquafina executive smiles. "Game on, Dasani!"
The Onion beat you to this particular joke (or a very similar one) by 16 years..
posted by Nerd of the North at 3:03 PM on October 27, 2020


This is pretty cool. I worked on the SOFIA project back in the early 90s during the design phase. It's neat to see that they were able to use this for an observation outside of the normal types of science that SOFIA was originally targeted for. Like how its predecessor, the Kuiper Airborne Observatory was where the discovered the rings around Uranus. (yeah, insert joke here)
posted by mach at 10:11 PM on October 27, 2020


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