Ice Definitely Exists on the Moon’s Surface

The image shows the concentration of water ice on the lunar surface. The south pole and its hefty concentration of ice within craters is shown on the left, and the right shows the more sporadic, wide spread ice on the north pole. (Credit: NASA) We’ve seen evidence of ice deposits on the surfaces of Mercury and Ceres, but we can now add a much closer celestial body to the club. Research published on August 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that specific signatures of water ice exist atop the cold, dark craters near the moon’s poles — proving the existence of lunar surface ice for the first time. This story probably sounds familiar, and that's because it isn't the first time we've found water particles on the moon. Water was detected back in 2009 when NASA’s Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) shot into ...