Ice Pond Found on Moon Boosts Settlement Hopes

WASHINGTON —  The moon, long thought to be bone dry, has a pond of ice hidden deep inside a crater, scientists disclosed Monday, increasing chances that humans may someday live on its surface.

The discovery came from the Clementine spacecraft, which used radar signals to examine the depths of the moon’s deep craters.

Officials at the Pentagon, who co-sponsored the project with NASA, planned an announcement of the findings at a news conference today.

“If you could wish for any one thing there to make it easier to explore with, it would be water,” said Anthony Cook, astronomical observer at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.

The ice was found in a huge crater deep in the south pole of the moon, said Rick Lehner, spokesman for the Pentagon’s Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. He said that a panel of scientists has concluded that it is ice.

“It is an extremely significant discovery,” said Cook. “With water there, you could have enclosed areas to grow plants, grow your own food, make your own fuel, make your own air. You don’t have to launch all that stuff from big rockets on the Earth.”

Lehner said the crater is twice the size of Puerto Rico and higher than Mt. Everest. He said the ice formation is the size of a small lake and is 10 to 100 feet deep.

“People have theorized that there may be water on the moon, but the [six] Apollo missions didn’t find any evidence,” he said.

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Scientists believe that a comet crashed into the moon 3.6 billion years ago and left water droplets in the bottom of the crater, the deepest hole in the solar system, he said.

Clementine, launched in January 1995, was a $75-million mission to test “Star Wars” sensors developed to detect and track missiles. The discovery of ice was an unexpected byproduct, Lehner said.