China's lunar lander, Chang'e-5, finds water beneath the surface of the Moon, at least that is what the researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing are saying.
China's Lunar Lander and WATER on the Moon
As per the report by Futurism, a global team of scientists, which is led by Chinese researchers, claims that the moon lander of China has detected water from under the surface of the Moon.
The Chinese researchers looked into the data that was provided by the China National Space Administration, the counterpart of NASA in the Asian nation.
China's Chang'e 5 lunar lander sent the data from the surface of the Moon to Earth, which turns out to carry the first-ever evidence that water actually exists on the Moon.
According to the news story by the South China Morning Post, the moon was previously assumed to sport a dry surface due to the lack of any evidence proving otherwise.
However, some scientists have been consistently suggesting that there could be ice and water elements on the surface of the Moon.
Thus, the space agencies of China and the United States are now looking for any evidence that could prove that there is water on the Moon.
It is worth noting that having water on the Moon would mean that it could further help sustain the presence of humankind on Earth's natural satellite.
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Chinese Probe Claims Water on the Moon
The lead author of the recent study, Ling Honglei, who is also a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, likened "the first opportunity to detect signs of water at close range and high resolution on the lunar surface" to a "field trip" on the Moon.
The lunar lander used a lunar mineralogical spectrometer or LMS, a panoramic camera, and a lunar penetrating radar to search for any evidence of water on the surface of the Moon.
The team of researchers further looked for any signals that would indicate that there is water on the Moon surface data of the Chinese lunar lander.
As per the news story by PetaPixel, the infrared light data from the lunar lander, which is supposed to unravel any water sightings, has been altered by the heat from the lunar surface.
As such, the researchers went on to use a thermal correction model to find any evidence of water from the lunar data.
Upon doing so, the results of the thermal correction went on to show that there are minute amounts of water found from a rock on the surface of the Moon.
To be more precise, there is about 120 ppm of water detected from the soil of the lunar surface, whereas the lunar rock carries 180ppm of water.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Teejay Boris
