New map provides hints about how water may be moving across Moon’s surface

At the 2023 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, NASA scientists presented a new study that has pieced together the first detailed, wide-area map of water distribution on the Moon.

The study, which utilizes data from the now-retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), provides hints about how water may be moving across the Moon's surface, particularly near its South Pole, where NASA plans to land the Artemis III crew.

The new map encompasses roughly 25% of the Moon's Earth-facing side that lies below 60 degrees latitude, reaching all the way to the South Pole. According to NASA, this extensive coverage could allow researchers to effectively examine the relationship between water and the surface features on the Moon, avoiding areas with sunlight and focusing on colder regions.

In late 2024, NASA's water-hunting mobile robot, Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), will land in the region studied by SOFIA to closely explore the location and concentration of ice and other resources. The rover will aim to find the answer to the question left open by the SOFIA observations - where the Moon's water may be coming from and whether it is migrating along the Moon's surface.

In 2020, we announced the confirmation of H2O on the Moon, but we had remaining questions – how does the water behave? How can we access it? A new map of water distribution on the Moon provides hints about how water may be moving across the Moon's surface. https://t.co/dJQpwUZ7Ah pic.twitter.com/TVpjlz7GOj

— NASA Moon (@NASAMoon) March 15, 2023

"With this map of SOFIA data, and others to come, we are looking at how water is concentrated under different lunar environmental conditions. This map will provide valuable information for the Artemis program on potential prospecting areas but also provides a regional context for future science missions, like VIPER," said Casey Honniball, a visiting assistant research scientist and VIPER science team member at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland, who was involved in the work.

The lunar South Pole contains permanently shadowed regions rich in resources and in terrain unexplored by humans. NASA has selected 13 candidate regions for the Artemis III lunar landing, each of which lies within six degrees of latitude of the South Pole and, collectively, contains diverse geologic features.