admin On August 23, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully landed a spacecraft on the Moon’s south pole, a location that has always been of particular interest to scientists due to its unique conditions. The difference is created by the ends of the planet.
The lunar rover Chandrayaan-3, which recently completed a 14-day mission, made history by landing at the moon’s south pole. UNSW Sydney astrochemist Dr Laura McKemmish explains the importance of the mission and the future of lunar exploration.
“This is India’s first Moon landing and it will make India the fourth country to set foot on the Moon,” Dr. John said. McKemmish. “The ability of our global civilization to engage in space exploration is really important to enable humanity, as a global community, to explore other places in the universe.”
Interest in the southern pole of the moon stems primarily from the fact that scientists have been aware of the presence of frozen water there, and locating water is a large part of Chandrayaan-3’s mission. “Identifying frozen bodies of water on the moon is a really important gateway for further space discovery in our solar system.”
Navigating craters, darkness and extreme temperatures
Following a failed mission to land on the moon in 2019, India joined the US, China and the Soviet Union as only the fourth country to reach this milestone.
Chandrayaan means “moon vehicle” in Hindi and Sanskrit. The vehicle took off from a launch pad in southern India on July 14 and completed a ‘soft landing’ on the moon nine days later. A soft landing is when the space shuttle is kept intact.
Many space agencies have attempted to land on the Moon’s south pole, but this is notoriously difficult to achieve due to the rugged terrain, extreme temperatures, lack of light and communication difficulties.
“Humans have been on the Moon’s equator for more than half a century,” Dr. McKemmish said. “And although soft landings are always more technically demanding, when the terrain is more cratered, as is the case in Antarctica, it becomes even more difficult. Communications at the poles also increase compared to the equator.“
Chandrayaan-3 will conduct a series of experiments, including spectroscopic analysis of the mineral composition of the lunar surface.
“Generally a moon rover will be digging up samples, taking lots of photos, and taking various spectral readings investigating how the material interacts with light,” says Dr. McKemmish.
“For this mission, the spectroscopic technique used is basically focusing a laser on the surface, causing the moon rocks to become a plasma. This plasma emits colors of light depending on its composition and thus this measurement tells us a lot about the geology and history of the rock.”
Already, this technique has been used to measure the presence of aluminum, silicon, calcium, iron and sulfur on the surface of the moon, as confirmed by ISRO.
Since the moon rover has completed its walk, scientists will be analyzing data looking for signs of frozen water.
Using water to make rocket fuel
Water ice has already been definitively confirmed at the poles of the moon.
“If you think of most of the surface of the moon, it goes in and out of sunlight, making the temperature range quite large,” says Dr. McKemmish. But the water at the poles has been detected in the shadows of craters, where the temperatures never reach above -250 degrees Fahrenheit, and due to the minimal tilt of the moon’s rotation axis, sunlight never reaches these regions.
Initially, scientists from the University of Hawaii, Brown University and NASA used data from an instrument on board the specially equipped Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, launched by ISRO in 2008, to confirm the discovery. presence of solid ice on the moon. without landing on it.
“Scientists first looked for water by studying the surface because it reflects light in a different way than other geological formations. This was confirmed when they shined infrared light downwards . C’ is light emitted at a lower energy level than our visible light, and water absorbs it at a characteristic frequency.
Water not only supports life and can be used used by astronauts permanently stationed on the Moon, it also has other important uses.
“Water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen,” Dr. McKemmish explains. “Besides allowing us to breathe, oxygen has other essential ways to support humans. In particular, oxygen and hydrogen together form a fuel that can power spacecraft made from lunar materials for missions in other parts of the solar system.”
Use of moon-based material and fuel is significant because getting anything from Earth’s gravitational pull up into space is really expensive, as it requires a huge amount of energy.
“Anything that you can create or find on somewhere like the moon, which has much lower gravity, means it’s much cheaper and this could make it far easier to pursue a human mission to Mars.
“This work is building towards a permanent base on the moon, like how there is permanent human presence on the International Space Station. It’s about moving towards constructing spacecraft in orbit, because it’s a lot cheaper if we can do things in space.”
Lessons from Chandrayaan-3
While this mission has been a historic moment in itself, it has also acted as a gateway to further discovery.
As Dr. McKemmish explains, exploring the south pole of the moon is exploring a new region of the planetary surface. “If you think about Earth, Antarctica is completely different than the middle of the Australian desert, which is completely different from the Amazon rainforest.
“And obviously, life creates some of this variation. But even without life, there’s a lot of variability on earth, and that tells us a lot of interesting things about the history.”
Dr. McKemmish emphasizes that the surface of the moon is not all homogenous. “It is fascinating scientifically to understand the diversity of the moon’s different environments, but it is also important economically. Beyond the crucial presence of water in the south pole regions, we are really interested in knowing if there are regions near these water deposits that are particularly metal rich. This would be a perfect location for a future moon base.”
Importantly, it’s also telling a story where space isn’t dominated by a few countries, but invites a more global community into exploring space. Since the Chandrayaan–3 spacecraft mission, the ISRO has already launched a rocket to study weather patterns from the sun.
“Australia is a reasonably small country worldwide, and we thought it was important enough to create a space agency,” says Dr. McKemmish. “In fact, the Australian Space Agency is launching a moon rover on the Artemis mission as soon as 2026. And you can even take a crack at naming the spaceship.“
Provided by University of New South Wales
