Using the Impact of the Lunar Prospector into a South Polar Cold Trap to Detect Water Ice on the Moon

Details Using the Impact of the Lunar Prospector into a South Polar Cold Trap to Detect Water Ice on the Moon Using the Impact of the Lunar Prospector into a South Polar Cold Trap to Detect Water Ice on the Moon

Jul 1999

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999hst..prop.8539b&link_type=abstract

HST Proposal ID #8539

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Hst Proposal Id #8539 Solar System

Scientific paper

Lunar Prospector data support the contention that water ice reservoirs exist in the permanently shaded craters near the lunar poles. Yet questions remain about whether the detection is actually of water ice or is of hydrogen in some other form. As the Prospector orbiter reaches the end of its planned mission at the end of July, 1999, a controlled impact of the orbiter into a polar crater will be used to liberate a small amount of water vapor which may be detected by ground- and space-based observatories. A positive spectral detection of water vapor or its photo-dissociated byproduct, OH, would provide definite proof for the presence of water ice in the regolith. Our impact models include plume gas dynamics predict detectable OH column densities both during the initial plume development and after the accommodated OH exosphere has developed above the sunlit Lunar surface. The STIS CCD can provide the high spectral resolution needed to resolve the A-X{0-0} band of OH at 3085A f rom the solar spectrum reflected b y the lunar surface. Details of the modeling can be found in our recently published paper{Goldstein, etal. J.Geo.Phy. Res. Let. Vol 26 No. 12, June 15, 1999, pp.1653-57}. Additional figures and supporting in formation is also available at http://www.ae.utexas.edu/ cfpl/lunar/ NASA has now approved our proposal for a controlled impact into a crater located at {+41E, -87.5S}. We have worked out a deorbit scenario that will allow us to impact into the preferred crater on either July 30th or 30st UTC.

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