Water on the Moon Confirmed by NASA Crashes for National
Geographic News |Updated 10:00 p.m. ET, November 13, 2009| It's
official: There's water on the moon—and a "significant amount"
of it, too, members of NASA's recent moon-crash mission, LCROSS,
announced today. In October, NASA crashed a two-ton rocket and
the SUV-size LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing
Satellite) into the permanently shadowed crater Cabeus on the
moon's south pole. The crashes were part of an effort to kick up
evidence of water on the moon (picture). (Read more on the
LCROSS mission's moon target.) Despite disappointing many
amateur astronomers on Earth, who had been expecting to see a
giant plume of lunar dust and ice crystals, the moon-water
mission was a success, NASA says. (See NASA 'Moon Bombing' a
Hit, But LCROSS Impact Invisible?") The LCROSS team took the
known near-infrared light signature of water and compared it to
the impact spectra LCROSS near-infrared recorded after the probe
had sent its spent rocket crashing int