{"id":19219,"date":"2022-08-08T11:34:06","date_gmt":"2022-08-08T11:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/us-scientists-ignored-soviet-unions-discovery-of-water-on-moon-decades-ago"},"modified":"2022-08-08T13:45:03","modified_gmt":"2022-08-08T13:45:03","slug":"us-scientists-ignored-soviet-unions-discovery-of-water-on-moon-decades-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/us-scientists-ignored-soviet-unions-discovery-of-water-on-moon-decades-ago","title":{"rendered":"US Scientists Ignored Soviet Union\u2019s Discovery of Water on Moon Decades Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mauritius. <\/strong><\/span>On Monday, the US space agency NASA announced its scientists had \u201cfor the first time\u201d discovered water on the sunlit surface of the moon. However, the Soviet Union\u2019s Luna 24 probe made the discovery in 1976 \u2013 a find totally ignored by Western scientists.
\nAccording to NASA, scientists at the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) detected water molecules (H2O) in Clavius Crater, on the moon\u2019s southern hemisphere.<\/p>\n

The report notes the concentration to be roughly 100 to 412 parts per million, or the equivalent of a 12-ounce water bottle in a cubic meter of soil. That\u2019s 100 times less moisture than can be found in the Sahara Desert.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had indications that H2O \u2013 the familiar water we know \u2013 might be present on the sunlit side of the Moon,\u201d Paul Hertz, director of the Astrophysics Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, said in the news release.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we know it is there.<\/p>\n

This discovery challenges our understanding of the lunar surface and raises intriguing questions about resources relevant for deep space exploration. \u201d<\/p>\n

However, if NASA scientists had read a bit more work from their Soviet colleagues, they might have realized that the Soviet Union\u2019s Luna 24 probe made this discovery in 1976.<\/p>\n

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) dispatched dozens of probes to various objects in outer space, including the moon and Venus, making major contributions to humanity\u2019s knowledge of the solar system. However, their work was often ill-read by Western scientists.<\/p>\n

One paper published in 1978 in Geokhimiia (Geochemistry), the monthly scientific journal of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, pretty definitively declared it had discovered water on the lunar surface in the Mare Crisium crater.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s titled \u201cPossible Water in Luna 24 Regolith from the Sea of Crises\u201d in the English edition of the publication, the article by M. V. Akhmanova, B. V. Dementyev & M. N. Markov makes definitive claims about having discovered water.<\/p>\n

According to Arlin Crotts, who was an astronomy professor at Columbia University until his death in 2015, the trio tested soil samples brought from the moon back to Earth by the Luna 24 probe.<\/p>\n

That probe had drilled two meters down into Mare Crisium and extracted 170 grams of lunar soil. By using infrared absorption spectroscopy, they proved the lunar soil was composed of roughly 0.1% water by mass, with more water appearing further below the surface you went.<\/p>\n

The Soviet scientists went to great lengths to protect their samples from contamination once they returned to Earth \u2013 far more than the United States\u2019 Apollo astronauts \u2013 but nonetheless, the Soviet trio \u201cwere not willing to stake their reputations on an absolute statement that terrestrial contamination was completely avoided,\u201d though they noted they took \u201cevery possible precaution\u201d to protect it, Crotts wrote in 2012.<\/p>\n

Despite this, according to Crotts, by 2012 their work had not been cited a single time. In NASA\u2019s news release on Monday, the US government space agency makes clear that when they refer to previous \u201cindications\u201d water might be present on the sunlit side of the moon, they are referring to US efforts in the 1990s, such as the 1994 Clementine spacecraft and 1998 Lunar Prospector orbiter, not to any Soviet finding.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Mauritius<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mauritius. On Monday, the US space agency NASA announced its scientists had \u201cfor the first time\u201d discovered water on the sunlit surface of the moon. However, the Soviet Union\u2019s Luna 24 probe made the discovery in 1976 \u2013 a find totally ignored by Western scientists. According to NASA, scientists at the Stratospheric Observatory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":19218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,9,16],"tags":[233,245,241,1360],"class_list":["post-19219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-miscellaneous","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-mauritius","tag-mauritius","tag-water"],"yoast_head":"\nUS Scientists Ignored Soviet Union\u2019s Discovery of Water on Moon Decades Ago - Mauritius<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On Monday, the US space agency NASA announced its scientists had \u201cfor the first time\u201d discovered water on the sunlit sur ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/us-scientists-ignored-soviet-unions-discovery-of-water-on-moon-decades-ago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"US Scientists Ignored Soviet Union\u2019s Discovery of Water on Moon Decades Ago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Monday, the US space agency NASA announced its scientists had \u201cfor the first time\u201d discovered water on the sunlit sur ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/us-scientists-ignored-soviet-unions-discovery-of-water-on-moon-decades-ago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mauritius\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-08-08T11:34:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-08-08T13:45:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/sites\/61\/2022\/08\/postQueueImg_3-62f113417861a.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"406\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/us-scientists-ignored-soviet-unions-discovery-of-water-on-moon-decades-ago#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/us-scientists-ignored-soviet-unions-discovery-of-water-on-moon-decades-ago\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"US Scientists Ignored Soviet Union\u2019s Discovery of Water on Moon Decades Ago\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-08-08T11:34:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-08-08T13:45:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/us-scientists-ignored-soviet-unions-discovery-of-water-on-moon-decades-ago\"},\"wordCount\":553,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/us-scientists-ignored-soviet-unions-discovery-of-water-on-moon-decades-ago#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/sites\/61\/2022\/08\/postQueueImg_3-62f113417861a.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Mauritius\",\"Mauritius\",\"water\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"miscellaneous\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/us-scientists-ignored-soviet-unions-discovery-of-water-on-moon-decades-ago#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/us-scientists-ignored-soviet-unions-discovery-of-water-on-moon-decades-ago\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/us-scientists-ignored-soviet-unions-discovery-of-water-on-moon-decades-ago\",\"name\":\"US Scientists Ignored Soviet Union\u2019s Discovery of Water on Moon Decades Ago - 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