M3 Science Blog

At a press conference held today at NASA Headquarters (2:00pm Eastern Sept. 24,2009), the M3 team announced that spectral evidence for the presence of water and hydroxyl (OH) on the surface of the Moon exists in M3 data.  The evidence exists in the form of a strong absporption feature in the 3µm region of the electromagnetic spectrum that occurs in spectra for several areas of the Moon.  The feature is observed systematically across the Moon. Two other instruments, the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, and the High-Resolution Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (HRI-IR) on NASA’s EPOXI (Deep Impact) spacecraft, have confirmed the M3 observations.

The image below is a false-color composite showing the distribution of water and hydroxyl on the lunar surface in blue.  Variations in Fe-bearing mineralogy appear in the green and orange tones. Click the image to see all images released by NASA at the press conference.

Water/Hydroxyl detected at High Latitudes

To see details of the press conference, click here. The M3 paper can be found on the Science Express website. Also, this blog will be updated with new information in the coming days and weeks.

This Thursday at 2:00pm Eastern time NASA Headquarters will be holding a press conference that lunar science enthusiasts will not want to miss! At this press conference, some long awaited  and extremely exciting results from our mission will finally see the light of day.  We are incredibly excited to be able to share with the lunar science community and the world at large a finding that we’ve been keeping under wraps for months while we carefully and thoroughly performed our analyses.

Shortly after the telecon, we’ll post on this blog and our sister sites (here and here) all the supporting material that accompanies the press conference.

Here is the details of the press conference, as released by NASA HQ:

MEDIA ADVISORY: M09-183

NASA TO REVEAL NEW SCIENTIFIC FINDINGS ABOUT THE MOON

WASHINGTON — NASA will hold a media briefing at 2 p.m. EDT on Thursday, Sept. 24, to discuss new science data from the moon collected during national and international space missions. NASA Television and the agency’s Web site will provide live coverage of the briefing from the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St. SW, in Washington.

The briefing participants are:
- Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington
- Carle Pieters, principal investigator, Moon Mineralogy Mapper, Brown University
- Rob Green, project instrument scientist, Moon Mineralogy Mapper, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
- Roger Clark, team member, Cassini spacecraft Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer and co-investigator, Moon Mineralogy Mapper, U.S. Geological Survey in Denver
- Jessica Sunshine, deputy principal investigator for NASA’s Deep Impact extended mission and co-investigator for Moon Mineralogy Mapper, Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland

Reporters unable to attend the briefing may ask questions by telephone. To reserve a telephone line, journalists should e-mail their name, media affiliation and telephone number to Steve Cole at:
stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

Papers supporting the briefing will be published online by the journal Science at its Science Express Web site. Science will lift its embargo at 2 p.m. EDT, Sept. 24.

For more information about NASA TV downlinks and streaming video, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

It is with great sadness that we confirm that Chandrayaan-1, M3’s host spacecraft, has been lost and the mission has been terminated by ISRO. Here is part of a note from the Chandrayaan-1 Project Director, relaying the news to the M3 team:

“On 29th Aug early hours we lost contact with ISRO and Mission has been
officially declared terminted by Chairman, ISRO.
At this point of time I would like to place my sincere thanks to all of
you and your team for being  part of this historic mission.
Against many odds, the mission has almost accomplished its objectives.
Science results will be coming out soon.”

We are of course disappointed that the problem occurred only ten months into the 2 year nominal timeframe of the mission, but are nevertheless very proud of the success that Chandrayaan-1 and M3 had during its operational lifetime.  It has been an honor to be part of India’s first mission to the Moon.

M3 collected over 4.6 billion spectra at a spectral resolution unprecedented in lunar remote sensing.  Our low resolution mode spatial coverage nearly encompasses the entire Moon.  We have barely begun to harvest all of these spectacular data, but are excited that initial results will be presented at the DPS Meeting in October and the Fall AGU Meeting in San Francisco.  Soon the M3 team will be able to announce some incredibly exciting results to the public for the first time.   So while we mourn the loss of a great instrument and a great spacecraft, we are excited about the great science still yet to come!

August 4, 2009:  NASA’s Moon Mapper Beholds Home

Image of Earth from the Moon acquired by the NASA Discovery Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) that is a guest instrument onboard the ISRO Chandrayaan-1 Mission to the Moon.  Australia is visible in the lower center of the image. The image is presented as a false color composite with oceans dark blue, clouds white, and vegetation enhanced green. The data were acquired on the 22nd of July 2009 during a local solar eclipse.  More information, including a link to a full-resolution version of this image can be found here.

ISRO’s Terrain Mapper Camera also captured the eclipse. Shown here are two images in the sequence showing the shadow of the Moon as it crossed from China into the Pacific ocean.  More images can be found here.

In March of each year, the planetary science community assembles at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in Houston, TX.  Hosted by the Lunar and Planetary Institute, this meeting is one of the premiere planetary science conferences, and is an always exciting week full of the latest discoveries, newest mission results, science discussion, and collaboration.  This year will certainly be no different, as the Moon Mineralogy Mapper team will make its first presentations of science results to the international science community! These were first presented March 10 at a Chandrayaan-1 Science Results meeting in India. The M3 team will be making several presentations at LPSC this year, a few of which we would like to highlight for you now.  Each presentation made at LPSC, which can be made in the form of a talk or a poster presentation, is accompanied by a two-page abstract that summarizes the presentation.    Read on for  the highlights from some of those presentations and links to the corresponding abstracts.

Read the rest of this entry »

We are thrilled to finally be able to share with our colleagues and the public a look at the first set of data that our Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument collected!  M3’s first look at the Moon occurred on November 22, 2008 when we acquired some new data for the Orientale Basin.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks for visiting the Moon Mineralogy Mapper’s science team blog.  This site is pretty new, but very soon it will be filled with info about our science team and some of the exciting data we’re collecting.  So please check back often!