Another permanently shadowed crater on the Moon shows no obvious ice
Note that the bright areas are not ice but simply overexposed
The science team operating the Shadowcam camera on South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter — designed to take images in places with little light — yesterday released a new image taken of the floor of a permanently shadowed crater on the Moon, Hermes-A, located near the north pole.
That picture is to the right. The rectangle indicates the area discussed by the release, focusing entirely on describing its geological features, such as impact melt and the numerous secondary smaller impacts and ejecta within the crater floor. The inset gives the context, showing the crater’s location near the north pole. The blue areas in the inset are those areas thought to be permanently shadowed, such as the entire floor of Hermes-A.
What the release fails to mention is the most important detail lacking in this picture. Though the floor of Hermes-A crater is considered permanently shadowed, the low light image taken by Shadowcam shows no obvious ice features, at all. If there is a higher content of water here, it is locked within the soil, and would require processing to access. Even so, the picture suggests that any such moisture is of extremely low concentration, likely in the parts per billion, and hardly enough to build a lunar base.
This is the same result found by previous Shadowcam pictures. Increasingly it appears that the hope of finding large quantities of easily accessible water ice in these permanently shadowed craters is proving false.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Note that the bright areas are not ice but simply overexposed
The science team operating the Shadowcam camera on South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter — designed to take images in places with little light — yesterday released a new image taken of the floor of a permanently shadowed crater on the Moon, Hermes-A, located near the north pole.
That picture is to the right. The rectangle indicates the area discussed by the release, focusing entirely on describing its geological features, such as impact melt and the numerous secondary smaller impacts and ejecta within the crater floor. The inset gives the context, showing the crater’s location near the north pole. The blue areas in the inset are those areas thought to be permanently shadowed, such as the entire floor of Hermes-A.
What the release fails to mention is the most important detail lacking in this picture. Though the floor of Hermes-A crater is considered permanently shadowed, the low light image taken by Shadowcam shows no obvious ice features, at all. If there is a higher content of water here, it is locked within the soil, and would require processing to access. Even so, the picture suggests that any such moisture is of extremely low concentration, likely in the parts per billion, and hardly enough to build a lunar base.
This is the same result found by previous Shadowcam pictures. Increasingly it appears that the hope of finding large quantities of easily accessible water ice in these permanently shadowed craters is proving false.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Sad news if true. And, of course, only on-site sampling by robots or humans will settle the issue with finality.
But not a surprise either. As anyone familiar with my comment history at this and other sites is aware, I’ve been a skeptic of the “abundant ice at the poles” hypothesis since its origins. No plans for lunar development should be made that are contingent on being able to “live off the land” where water is concerned.
It was an instrumented lunar orbiter that initiated this whole ice-at-the-poles thing in the first place. It will be more than a bit ironic if a second such craft proves the means by which this notion is taken down.
Agreed.
The poles are still valuable for Earth observation…I can imagine a pole with optics all around…. continuous solar energy.
If anti-gravity were real–I’d want that dust for concrete down here.
I think it’s still early to feel much confidence in that conclusion, but I admit that it’s a possibility that has to be seriously considered.
If it is true, there is no getting around the fact that it will inhibit economic development of the Moon in the near-to medium-term. Yes, there will eventually be other ways to make oxygen or propellant out of lunar mineral resources, but those will be more difficult ways, and they will take more time to develop. Having to haul most or all of your oxygen, your water, your propellant up from Earth or some other location is a lot of payload mass and volume that has to be diverted to bulk commodities.
I am not against Elon and his Martian ambitions. But we really need to really explore the nearest neighbor first.
ISS has given us good experience with long term survivability in a vacuum. We can leverage that for long term investigation of the Lunar surface.
Aside from knowledge gained, it will give us surface experience in a hostile environment. Something we will need for Mars.
I wanted to throw my coffee at the TV when Obama said ” we’ve been there”. So short sight, he was. But I also think, deliberately so.
What I see when I look at the picture is the possibility of landing craft there, it’s not too rough, but I bet it’s full of powder. Rocket exhaust will remove the outer coating and expose what’s underneath. And probably evaporate that too.
Richard M said;
“Yes, there will eventually be other ways to make oxygen or propellant out of lunar mineral resources, but those will be more difficult ways, and they will take more time to develop”
After establishing a base for rudimentary survival, power generation for long-term expansion and development, then raw materials mining will be needed for the 3-D print machines to make what can’t be brought from earth like earthmoving equipment.
The flash arc furnace will produce an abundance of oxygen and other gases as a byproduct. The slag which will be mostly silicon glass will be used to make housing and landing pads. Nothing will go to waste, but it’s all going to need a lot of power which means nuclear energy is Paramount.
Capturing exhaust gas from methane/oxygen rockets will be the first smart thing to do because you need all that water and oxygen for breathing and greenhouse food. The mass is already in space, don’t waste it! Capture it and reuse it. It can also be recycled back into rocket fuel… And if done on a large enough scale you could literally create a continuous thrust rocket for quicker space travel and gravity.
Water separates into hydrogen and oxygen near 2000° F. If fed directly into a turbine to make power as it expands then immediately out the rocket nozzle, it could work.
I designed an elaborate prototype Fantasy rocket/generation ship. Won’t be capable of landing, but perfect for small moons and astroid mining.
Jeff Wright,
Agree entirely about the lunar poles as nexuses for lunar solar power generation. If there prove to be little or no usable frozen volatiles at either pole, then the two poles become much more equal in terms of desirable real estate. The recent preference for south polar, and adjacent, sites because of the supposedly greater frozen volatiles deposits there will diminish or disappear and both poles can be developed in parallel.
Richard M,
No appreciable frozen volatiles availability will certainly make lunar development more difficult in the early going and delay the point at which most of the needed mass of various sorts can be sourced locally, but it would not be a showstopper, per se. One early-stage effect might well be to slow-roll the rise of the initial human lunar population in favor of a greater reliance on Optimus robots that do not require nearly so large a logistics “tail.”
sippin_bourbon,
Humanity will eventually go – and stay on or near – many solar system bodies. I see no virtue – technical, economic or otherwise – in doing this serially rather than at the greatest degree of parallelism we can manage. Thoroughly exploring the Moon will be the work of generations. It has, after all, the surface area of Africa. We can be getting on to Mars and elsewhere at the same time we’re whittling down the portion of the Moon that remains Luna Incognita. Heck, there will most likely still be enormous tracts of yet-to-be-explored-in-detail territory on multifarious solar system bodies at the time the first interstellar human expedition departs for Alpha C. or wherever. At least a modest chunk of that total will still likely be located right here on Earth.
Max,
Over at The Space Review not long ago, Radical Moderate broached the idea of generating power on the Moon at small scale using APU turbines running on methalox boil-off from landed Starships, especially those intended to stay and be repurposed. This turns boil-off into a power source rather than a power sink as would be the case if it was to be actively countered.
I had the notion of routing the exhausts to permanently-shaded craters so as to build new stores of frozen volatiles even if there were none there to start with.
Your notion of adding at least some of the exhaust plumes of landing and departing spacecraft to the mix is a good one. We’re going to need to build landing pads anyway. Equipping them with some exhaust gas recovery plumbing would make their fabrication more complex up-front, but would pay dividends over the long haul.
Interesting article. Makes me wonder about the stated goals of the Artemis program. I mean besides the goal to land specific melanin skin content and type of genitalia on the lunar surface. Although thankfully, that silliness seems to have receded for a bit at least.
The goal of landing near the lunar south polar region was because “We were going to stay” and that region had a resource (water ice) that would be needed in long term permanent stays. Landing in the polar regions is more difficult than in the middle Maria regions due to lighting, terrain, and required fuel amounts (10 to 15% more) compared to near equitorial landings.
If this resource is actually not evident, why wouldn’t the rational approach be to approach things the way Von Braun, Ley, Clarke, others in the 1950’s envisioned lunar exploration? In fact the way the six Apollo lunar landings played out.
The first landing was in a relatively flat, fuel efficient region. Each successive flight demonstrated increasing improvements in precise landings and landing in rougher (more interesting) terrain. If Apollo 18 – 20 had occurred the possible (prime and alternate) landing sites included: Gassendi Crater (Fractured crater floor), Hyginus Rille, Copernicus Crater, Tycho Crater and the far side Tsiolkovskiy Crater.
Why not a return to this type of approach? It might reduce the amount of hardware we are splatting across the lunar surface and lead to more consistent success.
Doubting Thomas,
You’re correct that absent or mingy “ice” deposits at the lunar poles will automatically make non-polar lunar regions more equal as potential settlement spots. The one thing the poles would still have that other lunar sites would lack, though, is constant solar power availability if the power panels are mounted on even fairly modest masts. That will be especially important in the very early going.
Dick – I agree.
I just think that lunar exploration might advance more quickly in a step by step manner. I think that there may be too much hubris in NASA in thinking that NASA retains any real experience from the Apollo days and we can leap to the hardest problems after a 53+ year hiatus.
Doubting Thomas,
When it comes to exploration and settlement, “step-by-step” has always been far more the exception than the rule. The Lewis & Clark expedition was singular in its time, for example, but was immediately followed by many entirely private “expeditions” that weren’t after science so much as salable commodities – initially, furs. There were a lot of these mountain men, all working different areas at the same time. Hard on their heels came even larger numbers of settler-farmers, etc. There was no National American Settlement Administration to gum up the works or try to chivvy everyone into narrow little initiatives pursued serially. And thank god for that.
Outer space is going to be the same. Government-funded exploration and science projects will be the things with the highest profiles for awhile, but private sector parallelism will quickly surpass government efforts in scale and just keep going.
So it doesn’t really matter if NASA still has some hubris based on its 60s-era heyday. NASA isn’t going to be the one setting the agenda or paying the bills more than marginally in fairly short order.