Scientists at the Pentagon said yesterday that radio signals from an unmanned military spacecraft detected the electronic signature of what may be a "dirty lake" in deep areas of a giant polar crater that are never warmed by sun.
The researchers said the radar signal is not proof that water exists on the moon. But they said the reading is "strongly suggestive" of water ice and that a permafrost like soil is the "most probable" explanation for the finding.
Paul Spudis of the Lunar and Planetary Institute and Rice University said the water signal is "an amazing discovery" because all of the data gathered in the Apollo Man-on-the-Moon program indicated that the moon was totally parched.
Spudis said a NASA mission, called Lunar Prospector, will help settle the dry or soggy moon question.
"It will orbit the moon for a year and will have instruments that could confirm or negate our finding," Spudis said. He said the satellite will carry on board a neutron spectrometer that can detect from lunar orbit the presence of hydrogen, a major ingredient of water.
The water radar signal was collected in 1994 when a military test satellite called Clementine bera slsthoo surface. The signals bounced off and were captured by an antennae on Earth. The radio signals are changed by the type of surface they touched on the moon.
Spudis said signals from one pass over the lunar south pole bore the signature that earlier studies had shown is caused generally by ice.
Stewart Nozette of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory said that though water ice was "the most probable" explanation, the finding will not be confirmed until samples are actually collected from the site. No such mission is currently planned.
Spudis said the finding of water on the moon could have a "profound" effect on humanity's exploration of space.
He said the radar signal of ice came from a huge basin at the South Pole. Parts of the basin are always shaded from the sun, but near the center is a peak that is lighted 85 perent tti hiula possible, he said, to build a station on the moon near the bright spot and use solar-powered electricity to mine the water. Spudis said the water could then be split into oxygen and hydrogen, which is a basic rocket fuel.
"This may be the most valuable piece of real estate in the solar system," said Spudis. "We could build a filling station on the moon."
Spudis said the water probably accumulated over some 4 billion years as comets smashed into the moon. Comets are 90 percent water, he said, and molecules of water could have bounced into the cold shadows and remained there, mixed with soil and rock in a permanent slurry.
The crater that may contain water is known as the South Pole-Aitken Basin. It is twice the size of Puerto Rico and about 7.5 miles deep. This depth means that sunlight never penetrates into parts of the depths.
Such deeply shaded areas of the moon drop to temperatures near minus 380 degrees F, causing water to remain locked in the lunar soil for millions of years, Spudis said.
The ruling is certain to be appealed.
Kirk Cashmere, an attorney for three homosexual couples who sued the state, said Circuit Judge Kevin Chang "in a nutshell ruled that the sex-based classification in the state's marriage law is unconstitutional."
Chang said the state failed to show any compelling state interest to deny gay and lesbian couples the right to marry, Cashmere said. Copies of Chang's ruling were to be distributed yesterday.
A spokesperson for the conservative Family Research Council said the ruling defies the wishes of the majority: Polls say 70 percent of Hawaii's residents oppose same-sex marriages.
"This ruling is a slap in the face of the Hawaiian people who have made it clear that they don't want liberal judges tampering with society's foundational institutions," Kristi Stone Hamrick said.
Two gay men and two lesbian couples sued in 1991 for the right to marry, to the dismay of some national gay rights organizations that felt the move was premature and would provoke a backlash.
The 41 Roby residents and two more from nearby Sweetwater who will share a $46.7 million lottery jackpot are happy just to be solvent.
"Some of these people didn't know if they'd be able to farm again next year," said Peggy Dickson, bookkeeper at the Terry Gin, who is an organizer of the spur-of-the-moment lottery pool.