Researchers have now developed a new way using AI to look into the darkest areas on the lunar surface, to decipher clues to the integration of water in the Earth-Moon system.
Developed by ETH Zurich researchers, the ice formation in these dark areas could offer resources that could be harnessed by astronauts for consumption, rocket propellant or even shielding from radiation.
ETH Zurich said in a statement, "What makes the south polar region so fascinating is that because the Sun hovers near the horizon due to the Moon¡¯s axial tilt, the sunken floors of impact craters never see sunlight and lie in perpetual shadow. As a result, these shadowed regions are extremely cold - colder even than Pluto's surface, with temperatures ranging from 170¡ã to 240¡ã Celsius and approaching absolute zero,"
For this, they made use of a physics-based deep learning post-processing tool to create high-signal and high-resolution Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter¡¯s Narrow-Angle Camera images of 44 shadowed regions in the Artemis exploration zone.
The tool captures photons bound into the dark regions from crater walls and adjacent mountains, allowing scientists to show the potential exploration regions in images.
According to principal scientist Dr David A. Kring from the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), this can allow creating visible routes into permanently shadowed regions, reducing the risk to the Artemis astronauts as well as robotic explorers.
As per NASA, astronauts of the Artemis mission would only get to spend around two hours in the shadowed regions wearing the novel space suits. The new imagery could help in better mission planning and help guide astronauts to the boulders in the dark regions, where the soil can be collected and analysed to see the distribution of ices.
Using their technique on the images captured by the LRO camera that has been used to document the Artemis exploration zone, the enhanced images were analysed to see if water ice was not visible in the sheets that cover the dark lunar regions.
Dr Valentin Bickel, a former graduate student intern at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) and now a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich explains, ¡°There is no evidence of pure surface ice within the shadowed areas, implying that any ice must be mixed with lunar soil.¡±
Bickel added that their findings could also impact the mission delivering NASA¡¯s PRIME-1 payload. The team has detected a crater along with a few other features that can change the location where the ¡®intuitive machines¡¯ hopper lands later this year.
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