The thinking before was that ice accumulates below the surface between soil grains, so there would be a 50-50 mix of dirt and ice. We were able to figure out, given how long it took that ice to fade from view, that the mixture is about one percent dirt and 99 percent ice.While these conclusions were gathered from a single shot of a specific, the recent discovery of water on the moon was drawn from spectroscopic images of the entire lunar surface.
Thus, the quickly-escalating Moon-Mars water rivalry seems almost artificially balanced:
Moon
Pro: We know water could comprise up to 1% of the lunar surface.
Con: Since it's actually on the surface, in liquid form, our tools can't tell how "pure" or "dirty" the water actually is.
Mars
Pro: Water is frozen in underground blocks, so scientists can deduce that it's almost certainly pure.
Con: We don't know how widespread these sub-surface ice chunks really are.
This reminds me of Japanese Bug Fights--all the matchups are eerily even. The scorpion has the stealthy stinger, but has limited agility. The dung beetle has brute force, but it can't swim.
Science is fun. Everything is tangible, but rarely are things clear-cut.
Is there a battle going on between the water findings of the moon and mars?
ReplyDeleteNo, but both of these findings were largely unexpected and the fact that they came within a week of each other is pretty crazy. One can't help but compare the two sets of discoveries and look for connections...intereting stuff.
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