2023 has been a big year for lunar science. India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft lands near the Moon’s south pole; This is a major achievement for a country that is relatively new to the space scene, especially after the crash of the Chandrayaan-2 craft in 2019.
At the same time, NASA is preparing for a series of Moon-related missions, including the Artemis program. In 2023, the agency became nine signatories to the Artemis Treaty, an international treaty for peaceful space exploration, for a total of 32 countries that have signed it so far.
As Georgia Tech’s Mariel Borowitz explains, the United States now has broad bipartisan political support for space travel—for the first time since the 1970s—and returning missions to the Moon is the first natural goal.
Here are five stories The Conversation US published about Moon exploration last year, including why humans want to go back to the Moon, what Chandrayaan-3 found during its first foray on the lunar surface, and the ever-growing Moon problem. space junk.
1. Why should you shoot for the Moon?
Missions to the Moon have potential benefits for a variety of sectors, including commercial, military and geopolitical.
“Since humans last left the Moon in 1972, many have dreamed of the day humans would return. But for decades, these efforts have run into political obstacles,” Borowitz wrote. “This time, US plans to return to the Moon are likely to be successful; it has cross-sector support and strategic importance to ensure continuity even in politically challenging times.”
While some of these potential uses are incredibly remote—from mining the Moon for resources to sending military satellites into orbit around the Moon—near-term missions to the Moon will help inform scientists and stakeholders about future possibilities.
Read more: Returning to the Moon could benefit commercial, military and political sectors, a space policy expert explains
2. Searching for sulfur
India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander touched down on the Moon’s surface in late August 2023, just a few miles from the Moon’s south pole.
The rover, called Pragyan, took measurements of the lunar surface and found that soil near the south pole surprisingly contained sulfur.
St. As physicist Jeffrey Gillis-Davis of Washington University in St. Louis writes, future Moon missions or future Moon bases could use Lunar sulfur as fuel and as a component of everything from fertilizer to concrete.
Read more: Chandrayaan-3’s sulfur measurements open the door to lunar science and exploration
3. Water in ice
But sulfur isn’t the only resource the Moon’s south pole has to offer. Scientists have predicted for several years that there may be water in the form of ice at the Moon’s south pole. Chandrayaan-3’s sulfur discovery gives scientists more insight into how and how recently ice may have formed on the surface.
Comets or volcanic activity may have brought water to the Moon years ago. Paul Hayne, an assistant professor of astrophysics and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, wrote that if volcanic activity was responsible for the emergence of water, scientists would also expect to see higher levels of sulfur.
A number of future missions to the Moon, including NASA’s VIPER mission planned for 2024, will continue to investigate where ice might be hiding on the Moon.
Read more: Scientists suspect ice is hiding on the Moon, and multiple missions from the US and abroad are looking for it
4. Lunar debris
With all Moon missions, both current and future, some experts have expressed concerns about increasing space junk in “cislunar space” (or between the Earth and the Moon and around the Moon).
NASA does not currently keep track of space debris left behind from its missions, and this lack of oversight worries many people.
A team at the University of Arizona has begun creating a catalog of the debris left in this area. The team members started by identifying a few large objects, and as their methods improved, they were able to see objects as small as a cereal box. The team hopes this work will one day improve the sustainability of future lunar missions.
“While there is still a long way to go, these efforts are designed to lay the foundation for a catalog that will lead to safer, more sustainable use of cislunar orbital space as humanity begins to expand from Earth,” Vishnu writes. Reddy is a professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona.
Read more: More Moon missions mean more space junk around the Moon – two scientists create catalog to track junk
5. Flyers of the future
Earlier this year, NASA announced who would make up the crew of the Artemis II mission. Scheduled for late 2024, Artemis II will fly near the Moon and test technology and equipment planned to be used in future missions. This will also mean that humans will be close to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years.
Three of the four crew members have spent time in space, while the fourth has spent a lot of time in spaceflight simulations. Each of them began their careers as military pilots, like all astronauts on the Apollo missions. But this crew represents more racial and gender diversity than the astronauts of the Apollo era.
“Unlike the Apollo program with Artemis in the 1960s and 1970s, NASA has placed great emphasis on creating a politically sustainable lunar program by encouraging the participation of a variety of people and countries,” strategy professor Wendy Whitman Cobb wrote. Security studies at the Air University.
Read more: Meet the next four people heading to the Moon – How Artemis II’s diverse crew illustrates NASA’s plan for the future of space exploration
This story is a summary of articles from The Conversation’s archives.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit news organization providing facts and analysis to help you understand our complex world.
Written by Mary Magnuson Speech.
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