ISRO scientists revealed that its Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft that recently completed its second anniversary has picked up traces of water ice in the Permanently Shadowed Regions of the Moon.?
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This was revealed in a two-day online lunar science workshop organised by ISRO from September 6 to 7.?
To the uninitiated, Permanently Shadowed Regions are essentially the northern and southern poles of the moon that get zero sunlight, making them the coldest regions on the lunar surface.?
ISRO Chief, K Sivan revealed that Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft is loaded with Dual Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar that maps surfaces using measurements of electrical properties of materials and can differentiate between the lunar and the ice surface.
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The radar was one of the eight payloads that were sent to lunar orbit. Other payloads include a Terrain Mapping Camera, Orbiter High-Resolution Camera, a Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer, Solar X-Ray Monitor, Imaging Infrared Spectrometer, Atmospheric Composition Explorer and Dual-Frequency Radio Science Experiment.
K Sivan highlighted that it is also the worldĄ¯s first full polarimetric radar that has gone ahead for a planetary mission.?
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Anup Das, one of the members of the DFSAR team called this discovery could give us a better idea on the kind of impacts Moon has experienced in the past. The data and photos sent via the orbiter's high-resolution camera would undergo further analysis to study the massive craters.?
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