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Hubble inspects potential moon bases

Scientists are using the Hubble Space Telescope to scout out sites for potential human bases on the Moon.

Hubble can identify spectral features just 50 metres across over swathes of lunar terrain.

In particular, scientists hopes to be able to identify a mineral called ilmenite - or iron titanium oxide - which has previously been found in lunar soil samples. It has properties which would be useful in constructing a lunar base. It contains oxygen, which could be extracted for breathing, as well as hydrogen and helium absorbed from the solar wind. Heating the mineral would release the gases, which could then be used as a power source for the base.. Iron in the mineral might eventually be used to produce construction materials, such as steel, for lunar buildings.

Ilmenite was found in different concentrations in the several areas visited by the Apollo astronauts more than three decades ago. Hubble observed two of these sites - where Apollo 15 and Apollo 17 astronauts touched down in 1971 and 1972, respectively - as part of an observing run that finished on Sunday.

Hubble also looked at a third site - a 42 kilometre-wide crater called Aristarchus, near the Moon’s equator. The crater lies near the edge of a plateau that rises about 2 km above the vast lava plains that surround it.

NASA expects to release the results of the Hubble observations of the Moon by early October 2005.

posted by: kyawoo at 19:47 | link | comments |
unmanned missions, moon

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