Images Reveal No Icy Patches Inside Shackleton

The bottom of a lunar crater that lies within permanent shadows held the promise of finding water on the moon until recent images revealed no sign of bright icy patches indicative of a sheet of frozen water.

Always in shadow, the Shackleton crater near the moon's south pole has kept some experts hopeful of finding water ice on the moon, but photos recently taken by Japan's KAGUYA lunar explorer satellite have led Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency scientists to conclude that there are no exposed ice deposits in the crater. 

The Terrain Camera (TC), a 10-m resolution stereo camera onboard KAGUYA, succeeded in photographing the inside of the crater, which was faintly lit by sunlight scattered from the upper inner wall near the rim.

Led by Junichi Haruyama, a team of JAEA experts analyzed images and data retrieved by the TC. Temperature readings were estimated at -297 degrees Fahrenheit, the Science journal reported, but there was no "conspicuous brightness" indicative of a sheet of pure water ice.

Previous lunar missions did not have the ability to capture images within the dark Shackleton crater, but scientists were hopeful of the discovery based on other indications.

In 1994 the Clementine lunar orbiter gave indications some scientists interpreted to be water ice, and 1998's Lunar Prospector mission detected the presence of hydrogen in the Shackleton crater.

Haruyama concluded this recent finding does not rule out all possibility of the presence of ice in the crater, since a small amount of ice could be mixed in with lunar soil and not show up as a reflective area on the images.

FMI: www.jaxa.jp/index_e.html