India's lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 shows indigenous water from inside ... - Northern Voices Online

This is going to give a newfound confidence to our space fraternity in the long run. India's lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 has shown indigenous water from inside moon [video] As India is preparing to launch its second moon mission Chandrayaan-2, the benefits of the first moon mission of India are coming to the fore. There is little doubt that India's moon mission brought the nation to the top level of space exploration and the next moon mission already being called Chandrayaan 2 will get India more focus and will establish it among the top space powers in the world. The sort of money the Indian government is putting in its space program is simply huge and the nation is working hard to catch up with nations like China and Japan in the short run and finally United States in the long run. To be true the pace of India's space program is fast and many people are already comparing it to China's space program. But it will be ignorance to put India and China's space program on the same pedestal. China is miles ahead of India, but there is no doubt India is working hard to catch up with its far bigger neighbour. China is going for unmanned landing on the surface of moon this year. India is still years behind from this expertise. Nonetheless India's biggest space initiative Chandrayaan-1 remains a huge success for this South Asian nation's fledgling space program. India has made strides in the field of space and has left behind a number of other countries thanks to its mammoth financial resources and booming economy.  Now in a major achievement, a team of scientists have been able to find traces of water locked in the mineral grains on the moon's surface. The feat was achieved after decoding the data collected by the instruments on India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. The mineral grains were from an unknown source that was located deep beneath the surface of the moon. The latest finding is set to change many perceptions about moon and its atmosphere. The instrument called Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) was supplied by NASA and it was fitted on the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) spacecraft. The detection that is the first of its kind has found traces of water on the lunar orbit. The entire project is funded by NASA and the findings would be published in Nature Geoscience. In a statement issued NASA said: "Earlier studies had shown the existence of magmatic water in lunar samples returned during the Apollo programme. M3 imaged the lunar impact crater Bullialdus, which lies near the lunar equator. Its central peak is made up of a type of rock that forms deep within the lunar crust and mantle when magma is trapped underground." Things are looking exciting for the Indian space program. Laurels are coming, boosting the confidence of Indian space fraternity. Speaking about the discovery, Rachel Klima, a planetary geologist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, said: "This rock, which normally resides deep beneath the surface, was excavated from the lunar depths by the impact that formed Bullialdus crater. Compared to its surroundings, we found that the central portion of this crater contains a significant amount of hydroxyl — a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom — which is evidence that the rocks in this crater contain water that originated beneath the lunar surface." The accomplishment is going to give a newfound confidence to the nation. Shortlink: Posted by admin on August 30, 2013. Filed under opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. via Science - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHlYn5q_5I2t7C52n7G48zXMLWxAQ&url=http://nvonews.com/2013/08/30/indias-lunar-spacecraft-chandrayaan-1-shows-indigenous-water-from-inside-moon-video/

Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 2954071