NASA's LCROSS Mission has officially confirmed the presence of water on the moon.
The discovery comes after NASA successfully launched a rocket into a dark crater, causing a plume of lunar particles to shoot up into the air - allowing for a detailed observation by orbiting spacecraft. In other words, NASA fired a missile at the moon to see what would happen.

The LCROSS Mission is a companion to a larger scope mission called LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance orbiter). They were launched together on June 18, 2009. The purpose of the LCROSS was to "watch" the impact of the booster rocket as it slammed into the surface of a dark moon crater.

The reason why NASA chose this particular target, a crater named Cabeus, was based on a theory that water ice is abundant in permanently dark craters near the polar regions. The thinking is that, soil that is never exposed to the constant rays from the Sun will have the best chance of holding water. And hold water it does.

Double Impact

After the two ton "Centaur rocket" separated from LCROSS it plunged into the Cabeus crater, creating an impact, and plume of debris. Then, the "Shepherding spacecraft" (the main LCROSS unit itself) flew through the debris plume, collecting and relaying data before causing a second impact only four minutes later. Yes, they intentionally crashed LCROSS into the lunar surface!

"The LCROSS science instruments worked exceedingly well and returned a wealth of data that will greatly improve our understanding of our closest celestial neighbor," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS principal investigator and project scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

"We are blown away by the data returned," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS principal investigator and project scientist.

Water Confirmed

After analyzing the data collected from 'impact day' the LCROSS team, on Friday November 13, held a press conference to announce the historic confirmation of water on the moon.

"Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high angle vapor plume and the ejecta curtain created by the LCROSS Centaur impact. The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator.

According to NASA, the scientists were extra sure that water is abundant in the particles in the debris plume based on an emission in the ultraviolet spectrum that is attributed to hydroxl. Hydroxl is a by product of water that is exposed to sunlight. When water particles are excited by sunlight they release energy at specific wavelengths that was detected by the LCROSS spectrometers. These ultraviolet signatures produced just after impact are consistent with water vapor that has just been exposed to sunlight.

Colaprete continued, eluding to the prospect of even more exciting data on the way, "The full understanding of the LCROSS data may take some time. The data is that rich. Along with the water in Cabeus, there are hints of other intriguing substances. The permanently shadowed regions of the moon are truly cold traps, collecting and preserving material over billions of years."

Impact targets photographed by LRO	Impact as captured by LCROSS	Lunar region of the South Pole taken by LCROSS
The debris plume visible about 20 seconds after impact