Chandrayaan Found Water on Moon, Nasa Confirms

Mumbai, Feb 14 (TNN): In a major development relating to India's moon mission, Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope, one of the most powerful space observatories in the world, has confirmed the discovery of water on the moon by Chandrayaan-1.

The discovery was made by Chandra Altitudunal Composition Explorer (CHACE) on the night of November 14, 2008. The CHACE was one of the three instruments on board Chandrayaan-1's indigenous Moon Impact Probe (MIP).

The HST was launched in 1990 by Nasa space shuttle Discovery. HST's confirmation was announced recently by the American Astronomical Society which was made public on Saturday. It is a major boost to India's space programme.

Referring to the AAS endorsement, Tirtha Pratim Das, a scientist who was a part of the CHACE project, said in Vikram Sarabhai Space Centres internal journal 'Voyage' : "The CHACE experiment on board the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) in Chandrayaan-1 mission made the first successful measurement on the lunar day-side atmosphere on 14th November, 2008."

According to Das, the analysis of the data revealed the presence of water in significant amount on the moon.

Speaking to TOI, project manager of Chace, Syed Maqbool Ahmed, said: "Scientists from the west have for the first time acknowledged the published work of direct evidence of water on the moon by India."

Ahmed's response to the space telescopes confirmation assumes significance for two reasons. First, the credit for India's lunar discovery was snatched by Nasa in 2008-09 and Indian space scientists are extremely upset about this.