Chandrayaan 1

Is there water on the moon? India's lunar explorer, Chandrayaan 1, will try to find out by peeking into the moon's dark corners and sending an American probe to dig there.

When Chandrayaan heads for the moon on October 22, it will carry on board a 6.5-kg mini synthetic aperture radar (MiniSAR) developed by the Johns Hopkins University applied physics laboratory and the Naval Air Warfare Centre. It will look for water-ice in the permanently shadowed regions of the lunar poles by digging a few metres into the surface.

Although lunar samples brought back by previous missions show the moon to be pretty dry, recent discoveries suggest water-ice may exist in its polar regions. The lunar poles contain areas that are permanently dark, creating cold traps or zones that, because the sun never shines on them, may be as cold as 50-70 Kelvin (about minus 223 to minus 203 Celsius).