Detection of Water in the LCROSS Ejecta Plume

Watering the Moon About a year ago, a spent upper stage of an Atlas rocket was deliberately crashed into a crater at the south pole of the Moon, ejecting a plume of debris, dust, and vapor. The goal of this event, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) experiment, was to search for water and other volatiles in the soil of one of the coldest places on the Moon: the permanently shadowed region within the Cabeus crater. Using ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared spectroscopy data from accompanying craft, Colaprete et al. (p. 463 ; see the news story by Kerr ; see the cover) found evidence for the presence of water and other volatiles within the ejecta cloud. Schultz et al. (p. 468 )…