If humans are ever to inhabit the moon, the lunar poles may well be the location of choice: Because of the small tilt of the lunar spin axis, the poles contain regions of near-permanent sunlight, needed for power, and regions of near-permanent darkness containing ice — both of which would be essential resources for any lunar colony.
The area around the moon's Shackleton crater could be a prime site. Scientists have long thought that the crater — whose interior is a permanently sunless abyss — may contain reservoirs of frozen water. But inconsistent observations over the decades have cast doubt on whether ice might indeed exist in the shadowy depths of the crater, which sits at the moon's south pole.
Now scientists from MIT, Brown University, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and other institutions have mapped Shackleton crater with unprecedented detail, finding possible evidence for small amounts of ice on the crater's floor. Using a laser altimeter on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft, the team essentially illuminated the crater's interior with laser light, measuring its albedo, or natural reflectance. The scientists found that the crater's floor is in fact brighter than that of other nearby craters — an observation consistent with the presence of ice, which the team calculates may make up 22 percent of the material within a micron-thick layer on the crater's floor.
Read more at MIT News: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/shackletons-crater-0620.html
All images courtesy NASA/Zuber, M.T. et al., Nature, 2012
Tagged under: Moon (Moon),Moon,lunar exploration,space exploration,spacecraft,planetary science,solar system,water moon,MIT,aerospace
Clip makes it super easy to turn any public video into a formative assessment activity in your classroom.
Add multiple choice quizzes, questions and browse hundreds of approved, video lesson ideas for Clip
Make YouTube one of your teaching aids - Works perfectly with lesson micro-teaching plans
1. Students enter a simple code
2. You play the video
3. The students comment
4. You review and reflect
* Whiteboard required for teacher-paced activities
With four apps, each designed around existing classroom activities, Spiral gives you the power to do formative assessment with anything you teach.
Quickfire
Carry out a quickfire formative assessment to see what the whole class is thinking
Discuss
Create interactive presentations to spark creativity in class
Team Up
Student teams can create and share collaborative presentations from linked devices
Clip
Turn any public video into a live chat with questions and quizzes
Tried out the canvas response option on @SpiralEducation & it's so awesome! Add text or drawings AND annotate an image! #R10tech
Using @SpiralEducation in class for math review. Student approved! Thumbs up! Thanks.
Absolutely amazing collaboration from year 10 today. 100% engagement and constant smiles from all #lovetsla #spiral
Students show better Interpersonal Writing skills than Speaking via @SpiralEducation Great #data #langchat folks!
A good tool for supporting active #learning.
The Team Up app is unlike anything I have ever seen. You left NOTHING out! So impressed!