MUMBAI: Did India’s maiden Moon mission Chandrayaan-1 find water on the lunar surface before the project was aborted? There were indications on
Tuesday that it had. An announcement about a ‘‘major discovery’’ made by Chandrayaan-I is expected on Thursday, and the buzz is that this could be about water on the Moon.
If true, credit for this much-awaited discovery, however, could go to Nasa’s Moon Minerology Mapper (M3), one of the payloads on board Chandrayaan. The Rs 386-crore craft was launched on October 22 last year and terminated on August 30 following a communication failure. One of the mission’s main goals was to sniff for water.
For now, neither Isro nor Nasa is speaking about the discovery. An announcement is expected at a media interaction scheduled for Thursday at the Nasa headquarters in Washington DC featuring well-known lunar scientist Carle Pieters from Brown University. She is the principal investigator for M3. Efforts by TOI to call Pieters failed.
A spokesman for Brown University also declined comment, saying there was an embargo. "It will be a major announcement of a major discovery and is something great for Chandrayaan. It will mark a major leap for India’s space programme," he said.
An Isro official at Sriharikota also confirmed that a major announcement was expected on Thursday. ‘‘I too have heard something to that effect. Nothing more,’’ he said.
If the discovery of water proves true, then it could trigger another round of Moon missions, and start serious hunt for life in outer space. India has not ruled out the possibility of a manned lunar flight.
