Telecon Notes

OK, so if the Cassini calibration was done in 2008, then why wasn't this calibrated 1999 lunar data released in 2008 or 2009 - and news of OH and H20 already common knowledge when Deep Impact and Chandrayaan-1 arrived and began to take their own measurements?

When, if ever, did the calibrated data hit the PDS? If Cassini scientists have lots of data from the Saturnian system to keep them busy, why should they go back and look at the moon?

Editor's note: well then why collect the Moon data in the first place?

Keith,

I'm a postdoc in planetary science. Scientists need extraordinary evidence to believe things that sound 'crazy' or 'paradigm-breaking' and submit it to Science magazine. Otherwise, everyone would laugh them out of LPSC. The 'finding' with Cassini wasn't a finding until M3 told them that they weren't barking up a crazy tree.

It seems to me that to think that there is some sort of conspiracy about Cassini hiding their results is a misunderstanding about how our science works. No one would hide an amazing result from the public that they believe -- where would the glory be in that!?

Mining this old data to help understand and support an amazing new result is exactly the kind of thing that should be done, not something that should be looked on in the least bit askance.

My two cents...I appreciate you hosting this forum.

-cf

"Even the driest desert on Earth has more water than the poles of the Moon."

That sucks.

cf, thanks for explaining how this works. I don't think they wanted to "hide data" from the public but rather "make sure that data is correct."

Clarification is needed here. Jim Green said, "Even the driest desert on Earth has more water than the poles of the Moon."

Is he sure about this? I thought that the M3 data is for the sunlit portions of the Moon.

How does he know that there are no concentrated ice localizations in the dark lunar polar craters?

If a comet hit the dark crater directly, there could still be localized clumps of ice.

The biggest deal out of this press conference is that there is some poorly understood mechanism of transport to the polar region of water fractions. That means that polar lava tube volatile collectors could be supplied with something to collect there.

Editor's note: well then why collect the Moon data in the first place?

Because it was useful in the less calibrated state, because it gave them a chance to test out their instruments, and because then it would be available for some other researcher to go back and look at if something new came up.

Is the fully calibrated data in the PDS yet, or not?

So, cf, how deep is the water that's been detected? Can we say anything about the water content of layers deeper than that? That is, can we say that they're probably wetter, dryer, the same, or do we have absolutely no idea?

To me, this seems like good news/bad news. The good news is that it's not zero, basically anywhere. The bad news is that in the best places you still have to process 1000 kg of regolith to get a liter for your afternoon tea. That means an extensive and energy-intensive mining operation just for survival, much less harvesting supplies for Mars missions.

I'm a postdoc in planetary science. Scientists need extraordinary evidence to believe things that sound 'crazy' or 'paradigm-breaking' and submit it to Science magazine. Otherwise, everyone would laugh them out of LPSC. The 'finding' with Cassini wasn't a finding until M3 told them that they weren't barking up a crazy tree.

There was never anything "crazy" about the water findings. Dr. James Arnold did the thermodynamic calculations related to the random walk of H2O and hydroxl molecules from the various regions of the Moon to the cold traps.

The Neutron spectrometer from Lunar Prospector was a low resolution device with poor spectral resolution in comparison to the germanium device that flew on MRO that was Bill Boynton's instrument. Bill's instrument was supposed to fly on Lunar Resource Mapper and was not chosen in the follow on competition for the first Discovery mission that Lunar Prospector won. Even with that the Lunar Prospector instrument found extensive water in the lunar polar regions but since the instrument did not have the spectral resolution, the results were downplayed.

On Clementine the bistatic radar experiment also found indications of polar water that were downplayed by the science community. What is making this to where it cannot be discounted or downplayed are the three independent spacecraft with confirmations also coming from LRO in orbit.

The biggest deal out of this press conference is that there is some poorly understood mechanism of transport to the polar region of water fractions. That means that polar lava tube volatile collectors could be supplied with something to collect there.

The mechanism is well understood from fundamental thermodynamics. Here is the paper on the subject from 1979.

http://www.stormingmedia.us/03/0310/A031072.html

The good news is that it (water) is not zero, basically anywhere. The bad news is that in the best places you still have to process 1000 kg of regolith to get a liter for your afternoon tea. That means an extensive and energy-intensive mining operation just for survival, much less harvesting supplies for Mars missions.

There are other ways to view this, for example, in the context of the hydrogen reduction of lunar ilmenite to make oxygen. This process, which makes oxygen from regolith, entails heating the mineral ilmenite (Fe*O*TiO2) to high temperatures, reacting the hot ilmenite with hydrogen gas to make another mineral called rutile (Fe*TiO2) plus water, electrolyzing the water to make oxygen (for later consumption) and hydrogen, which gets recycled to reduce more ilmenite.

One unfortunate fact of life is that hydrogen will slowly leak out of even the best seals. Lose your hydrogen and you're done. In this context, the good news about lunar water is that processes that reduce ilmenite will necessarily produce additional (lunar) water, and therefore additional "make-up H2" without any extra effort.

We could discuss the same fact for other oxygen or metals production processes on the lunar surface. But bottom line is that, if lunar ground-truthing confirms the remote sensing inferences, this is good news.

http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/data/co-e_v_j_s-vims-2-qube-v1.0/

The data itself appears to have first been made available in June 2005, when the first batches of Saturn science data were released, as scheduled. The calibration process was discussed in the press conference. Check out and initial calibration during the flyby. Then, just before arrival at saturn, proper calibration which can then be re-applied back to that earlier dat. It's common practice to release that calibration data at the same time as the first science data.

For those not interested in calibrated QUB's - there are browse files added at a later date, the observations of interest specifically starting here - http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/data/co-e_v_j_s-vims-2-qube-v1.0/covims_0001/extras/browse/1999230T014425_1999230T021529/ starting 12 files from the bottom with v1313633393_1.qub.jpeg

Calling this data 'previously unreleased' or 'withheld' is, I would say, misleading. It's been available for >4 years.

Editor's note: so ... NASA goes through all this trouble to get the data and then no one knows what it says about water on the Moon? Not good.

There was never anything "crazy" about the water findings. Dr. James Arnold did the thermodynamic calculations related to the random walk of H2O and hydroxl molecules from the various regions of the Moon to the cold traps.

Dennis, I think that the question is not that it is completely impossible, it is just extremely unexpected at non-polar latitudes. The migration of water to cold traps is a fairly fast process, and sources of water are minimal on the moon . Until yesterday, most people would have said that there is a little bit of water accumulated from the rest of the solar system on the Moon, as debris from comets and the wetter asteroid classes impact the surface, but probably very slowly. These new observations point to the existence of a common process that allows water and/or hydration to happen broadly and fairly fast on the lunar surface, which is very new and 'crazy' in the sense that it is unexpected. Crazy was probably a bad choice of words. jaw-dropping?

So, cf, how deep is the water that's been detected? Can we say anything about the water content of layers deeper than that? That is, can we say that they're probably wetter, dryer, the same, or do we have absolutely no idea?

Strictly speaking, the observation really reflects hydration of the upper tens of -microns- of the surface. Carle Pieters seemed to say that it might be mm-thick. Personally, since I like the space physics/solar wind hypothesis floating around at the press conference, I think the real evidence is that hydration is happening at the -very- surface. Since the lunar soil is somewhat mixed (impact gardened), I guess a certain amount of hydration might also the upper meters of regolith. But it is a vanishingly small amount of water, really...not like seeing pure ice exposed on modern Mars! So I'm guessing the answer to your question is we don't really know, but if I had to guess, I'd expect the H2O content of deeper layers to be less than or equal to what is observed at the surface.

-cf