The environment on the lunar surface poses some difficult challenges to building long-term lunar bases; therefore, scientists and engineers have proposed the creation of habitats using lunar building materials. These materials must meet the following conditions: be resistant to severe lunar temperature cycles, be stable in a vacuum environment, have minimal water requirements, and be sourced fr...

More than 130 lunar meteorites have been found in Antarc-tica and other arid regions throughout the world. Even though nearly half of all lunar meteorites are paired falls and the location from which they were launched is unknown, they sample a more extensive area of lunar crust than manned sample returns, thereby providing a vital record of lunar crust materials. To use lunar meteorites to exp...

Introduction: In recent years, a number of studies [1,2,3] have been published using data from the Lunar Prospector Neutron Spectrometer (LP-NS) to identify and quantify anomalously high hydrogen abundances near the poles of the Moon, which may be in the form of water ice. If water ice is indeed present at the lunar poles in high enough abundance, this could provide a critical resource for futu...

Introduction: Since the discovery of ice in cold, permanently shadowed polar craters on Mercury[1], debate has reopened over the presence of ice in similar environments on the Moon. Though the Moon has similar shadowed craters currently, this has not always been the case. Here we examine a 4.5 billion year history of insolation in the lunar polar environment and the resulting surface and subsur...

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...

Large branching ratios observed for D and B decays to final states containing the a1(1260) ± are comparable to those for corresponding decays to states containing a charged pion or a charged ρ, and much larger than those for all other decays. Implications are discussed of a “vector-dominance model” in which a W is produced and immediately turns into an axial vector, vector or pseudoscalar meson...

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...

Background: Osteoporosis is one of the most common problems in the women, especially after menopause and at the old age. Bone densitometry of vertebrae of lumbar region and femoral neck is a non invasive and precise method for evaluation of bone mass density (BMD) and determination of fracture risk. Materials and Method: from different districts of Ahvaz city, more than 300 healthy men and wo...