Mapping Water on the Lunar Surface

By Bill Reach and Joan Schmelz

For the first time, SOFIA has made a detailed map of water on the surface of the Moon. Comparison with the lunar landscape shows that the water emission is strongest on the shady sides of deep craters and high mountains. Researchers used observations taken on 2022 February 17 as part of a SOFIA Legacy project intended to explore how water is distributed across the lunar surface.

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SOFIA Detects Water on the Moon

By Casey Honniball, Paul Lucey, and Joan Schmelz

Paper: Molecular water detected on the sunlit Moon by SOFIA
C.I. Honniball, et al., Nature Astronomy 2020.

Researchers using SOFIA have made the first-ever detection of the water molecule (H2O) on the sunlit surface of the Moon. This discovery refines our understanding of the behavior of water and how volatile elements and compounds interact with airless bodies throughout the Solar System and beyond.

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Does New Horizons’ Next Target Have a Moon?

Scientists were already excited to learn this summer that New Horizons’ next flyby target – a Kuiper Belt object a billion miles past Pluto -- might be either peanut-shaped or even two objects orbiting one another. Now new data hints that 2014 MU69 might have orbital company: a small moon.

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Catching the Shadow of a Neptunian Moon

Researchers on the flying observatory SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, are preparing for a two-minute opportunity to study the atmosphere of Neptune’s moon Triton as it casts a faint shadow on Earth’s surface. This is the first chance to investigate Triton’s atmosphere in 16 years.

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