Hydrogen has been inferred to occur in enhanced concentrations within permanently shadowed regions and, hence, the coldest areas of the lunar poles. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission was designed to detect hydrogen-bearing volatiles directly. Neutron flux measurements of the Moon's south polar region from the Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND) on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft were used to select the optimal impact site for LCROSS. LEND data show several regions where the epithermal neutron flux from the surface is suppressed, which is indicative of enhanced hydrogen content. These regions are not spatially coincident with permanently shadowed regions of the Moon. The LCROSS impact site inside the Cabeus crater demonstrates the highest hydrogen concentration in the lunar south polar region, corresponding to an estimated content of 0.5 to 4.0% water ice by weight, depending on the thickness of any overlying dry regolith layer. The distribution of hydrogen across the region is consistent with buried water ice from cometary impacts, hydrogen implantation from the solar wind, and/or other as yet unknown sources.
NASA's Lunar Precursor Robotic Program (LPRP), formulated in response to the President's Vision for Space Exploration, will execute a series of robotic missions that will pave the way for eventual permanent human presence on the Moon. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is first in this series of LPRP missions, and plans to launch in October of 2008 for at least one year of operation. LRO will employ six individual instruments to
We present Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS) observations of the
1_{10}-1_{01} transition of ortho-water at 557 GHz toward 12 molecular cloud
cores. The water emission was detected in NGC 7538, Rho Oph A, NGC 2024, CRL
2591, W3, W3(OH), Mon R2, and W33, and was not detected in TMC-1, L134N, and
B335. We also present a small map of the water emission in S140. Observations
of the H_2^{18}O line were obtained toward S140 and NGC 7538, but no emission
was detected. The abundance of ortho-water relative to H_2 in the giant
molecular cloud cores was found to vary between 6x10^{-10} and 1x10^{-8}. Five
of the cloud cores in our sample have previous water detections; however, in
all cases the emission is thought to arise from hot cores with small angular
extents. The water abundance estimated for the hot core gas is at least 100
times larger than in the gas probed by SWAS. The most stringent upper limit on
the ortho-water abundance in dark clouds is provided in TMC-1, where the
3-sigma upper limit on the ortho-water fractional abundance is 7x10^{-8}.Comment: 5 pages, 3 Postscript figures, uses aastex.cls, emulateapj5.sty
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