The Moon was thought to be anhydrous since the Apollo era1, but this view has been challenged by detections of water on the lunar surface2–4 and in volcanic rocks5–9 and regolith10. Part of this water is thought to have been brought through solarwind implantation2–4,7,10 and meteorite impacts2,3,7,11, long after the primary lunar crust formed from the cooling magma ocean12,13. Here we show that...

The Sooner Lunar Schooner (SLS) mission is a robotic mission to perform material science experiments on the lunar remnants of the Apollo 17 and Lunakhod 2 spacecraft. We have been using the SLS mission scenario as a framework for a number of classes in several departments including the aerospace and mechanical engineering departments. In this paper we will discuss, within the framework of the S...

Lunar samples are not readily available for In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) studies, necessary for preparations for a return to the Moon with landers, robots, and astronauts. Lunar soil simulants have been produced as substitutes for the real thing; BUT how good are they? JSC-1 and 1A were produced only to approximate the geotechnical properties of lunar soil, with its natural glassy compon...

Low estimated lunar volatile contents, compared with Earth, are a fundamental observation for Earth-Moon system formation and lunar evolution. Here we present zinc isotope and abundance data for lunar crustal rocks to constrain the abundance of volatiles during the final stages of lunar differentiation. We find that ferroan anorthosites are isotopically heterogeneous, with some samples exhibiti...

Lunar cycle-associated physiology has been found in a wide variety of organisms. Recent study has revealed that mRNA levels of Cryptochrome (Cry), one of the circadian clock genes, were significantly higher on a full moon night than on a new moon night in coral, implying the involvement of a photoreception system in the lunar-synchronized spawning. To better establish the generalities surroundi...

The LCROSS Mission: LCROSS, the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, will be launched on the same rocket as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) later this year (http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov). The LCROSS scientific objectives are: (1) Confirm the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed region on the Moon. (2) Identify the form/state of hydrogen observed by at the l...

Introduction: One of many unknowns prior to the Apollo landings concerned the possibility of life, its remains, or its organic precursors on the surface of the Moon. While the existence of lunar organisms was considered highly unlikely, a program of biological quarantine and testing for the astronauts, the Apollo Command Modules, and the lunar rock and soil samples , was instituted in the Lunar...

This contribution reviews some of the recent advancements in the field of lunar science based upon remote sensing results from a number of spacecraft missions to the Moon and laboratorybased analysis of lunar samples. Perhaps, one of the most exciting recent discoveries in lunar science has been the detection of water on the lunar surface and in the lunar samples. These new findings have signif...