New Delhi:
It could be one of the biggest finds in the history of space research - water on the moon. And proof of this may have come from India's own Chandrayaan satellite before it was aborted.
A joint Indo-US study published in the prestigious American journal SCIENCE has revealed this startling finding. In fact three separate missions examining the moon have found clear evidence of water there, apparently concentrated at the poles and possibly formed by the solar wind.
Water molecules in gaseous form have been reported simultaneously by two other spacecrafts Cassini and High Impact, but the clincher came from the $100 million Indian moon mission, which was lost in space in August. But before that it gave the world this new evidence.
The credit for this much-awaited discovery could go to NASA's Moon Minerology Mapper (M3) on board the Chandrayaan, which has mapped 97 per cent of the lunar surface change.
There are no puddles of water or lakes or rivers on the moon. It is found as a very thin invisible film on moon rocks.
ISRO is analysing this data and will be able to make an announcement soon.