![]() Robyn Williams: So where is the water you're going to be looking for?īethany Ehlmann: Where is the water? That is the question. Why? Because it's been pummelling by impacts over the years that melt, then impact to create the shards and repeat with no water or appreciable transport downhill to round off those edges. And so on the Moon, the soil is quite sharp, it's shards, effectively, of glass. I mean, as planetary scientists, what's fun and what gives us real insight is to think about how other bodies are different from Earth. In other words, the soil is not weathered, it's sharp.īethany Ehlmann: Yeah, that's right. And if they didn't have proper thick clothing on they would die because it would puncture it. Robyn Williams: I'm reminded to some extent going back in history that Brian O'Brien in Perth, who was a person fascinated by the Moon, he warned Apollo 11 about the fact that it would have rather sharp bits of…if you can call it soil. So we're the scout, the trailblazer (it is called Lunar Trailblazer) in advance of those future missions. Robyn Williams: You're not going to land your mission yourself?īethany Ehlmann: This one's not a lander, this one's an orbiter. In fact, we're a new flavour of NASA mission, a smaller, nimbler, higher risk type of mission, we're going to orbit the Moon and provide the highest resolution maps of water, and the composition and thermal properties of the surface, to understand why is there water on the Moon in the first place, and then also provide those maps that are going to guide our landed exploration by robots and astronauts. You mean that's one of the missions going up?īethany Ehlmann: One of the missions going up, yes, we are scheduled to launch later this year. In fact, right now, I've added another focus on the Moon, leading a mission Lunar Trailblazer. Since then, my interests though have expanded across the solar system and a bit beyond. And to begin our royal parade, Professor Bethany Ehlmann of Caltech, who is the president of the Planetary Society, and bent on exploring Mars and the Moon.īethany Ehlmann: Mars is one of the planets I love, and is how I got introduced to planetary science. It does not store any personal data.Robyn Williams: I'm Robyn Williams. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. NASA: Revealing the unknown to benefit all humankind. ![]() Ranger 4 crash lands on the Moon, April 26, 1962.Apollo 17 lands on Moon, December 11, 1972. ![]() ![]()
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