Ice confirmed at the Moon's poles

63 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17810503

>With enough ice sitting at the surface -- within the top few millimeters -- water would possibly be accessible as a resource for future expeditions to explore and even stay on the Moon, and potentially easier to access than the water detected beneath the Moon's surface.

>Learning more about this ice, how it got there, and how it interacts with the larger lunar environment will be a key mission focus for NASA and commercial partners, as we endeavor to return to and explore our closest neighbor, the Moon.

What will be necessary to sort out how much water ice is "available?" Wondering about colony feasibility

> M3, aboard the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, launched in 2008 by the Indian Space Research Organization, was uniquely equipped to confirm the presence of solid ice on the Moon. It collected data that not only picked up the reflective properties we'd expect from ice, but was able to directly measure the distinctive way its molecules absorb infrared light, so it can differentiate between liquid water or vapor and solid ice.

This is a big achievement by ISRO team given that they run in a fraction of budget that NASA do. Though NASA contributed to M3.

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17810503

Anyone else not super impressed?

Water is important for carbon-based life, but so is a bunch of other stuff like air, carbohydrates, aaaaaaaaaaaaaand also life...or at very least a very serious mix of reactive chemicals...From a causation perspective I gotta go back to the carbohydrate thing:

O-chem vs phys-chem. Find me a planet with a bunch of nitrogen/carbon in addition to ~7pH hydrogen/oxygen and I'll get excited. Promise.