ISRO Finds Direct Evidence of Water on Moon

On November 14, 2008, at 20:06 hours IST, the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) was separated from the Chandrayaan. It was Nehru’s one hundred and nineteen birth anniversary so it was fitting that the MIP carried the Indian flag with it. About 25 minutes later the MIP successfully impacted the moon’s surface at a predetermined site on the southern lunar pole.



MIP also carried CHACE (CHandra’s Altitudinal Composition Explorer) on board. CHACE was a sensitive instrument built to find elements present on the moon. Fifteen minutes before the MIP separation began CHACE was switched on. CHACE was built for these 25 minutes. As the MIP hurtled towards the moon surface CHACE was mapping the elements present on the moon. The scientists at ISRO were getting this data live. Within minutes, that night, they knew they had found water on the moon. In the following paper that will soon appear in Planetary and Space Science, the authors have reported their scientific findings:

‘Direct’ evidence for water (H2O) in the sunlit lunar ambience from CHACE on MIP of Chandrayaan I
R. Sridharan, S.M. Ahmed, Tirtha Pratim Das, P. Sreelatha, P. Pradeepkumar, Neha Naik and Gogulapati Supriya

Space Physics Laboratory, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Trivandram, 695022, India.

This is a wonderful achievement. This is the first evidence of water to come out of ISRO's own instruments on board the Chandrayaan.

Read: The Chandrayaan-I and Water on the Moon Series

Ice on Moon: But Again It Is Not an ISRO Instrument

Mini-SAR is a small, low mass synthetic aperture radar that flew on the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 mission to the Moon has found thick deposits of water ice on the moon's north and south poles. Mini-SAR was designed to map the permanently dark areas of the lunar poles and characterize the nature of the deposits there. In the following paper that will soon appear in Geophysical Research Letters, the authors have reported their scientific findings:

Initial results for the north pole of the Moon from Mini-SAR, Chandrayaan-1 mission
P. D. Spudis¹, D. B. J. Bussey², B. Butler³, L. Carter⁴, M. Chakraborty⁵, J. Gillis-Davis⁶, J. Goswami ⁷, E. Heggy⁸, R. Kirk⁹, C. Neish², S. Nozette¹, W. Patterson ², M. Robinson¹⁰, R. K. Raney², T. Thompson⁸, B. J. Thompson², E. Ustinov<sup>8

1</sup> Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston TX, USA.
² Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel MD, USA
³ NRAO, Siccorro NM, USA.
⁴ NASM, Washington DC, USA
⁵ Indian Space Research Organization, Ahmedabad, India.
⁶ Univ. Hawaii, Honolulu HI, USA.
⁷ Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, India
⁸ JPL, Pasadena CA, USA.
⁹ USGS, Flagstaff AZ, USA.
¹⁰ ASU, Tempe AZ, USA

This is a wonderful achievement. Two Indian Scientists, M. Chakraborty and J. Goswami, ISRO, Ahmedabad and PRL, Ahmedabad are listed as authors in this seminal paper.



But what happened to ISRO's own instruments? Mini-SAR was NASA's instrument riding on the Chandrayaan. In the earlier announcement in Science about water being found on moon, again the findings were based on NASA's instrument M3.

We have not heard anything of value being found from data collected by ISRO's own instruments. Was ISRO's role in Chandrayaan that of a carrier? I believe ISRO would have collected valuable data using its own instruments but has not been processing it. The moon mission was carried out with public money. Shouldn't the data be released to the wider Indian scientific community so that insights based on that data can be derived faster?

Read: The Chandrayaan-I and Water on the Moon Series

Carbon Cap VS India's Development

Did you know India's per capita carbon emission is 1.6 tonnes per annum. Compare this to the world average of 3.6 tonnes per annum per person and the US emission average of 20.4 tonnes per annum per person and you see how the emissions are skewed.

The map below shows the per capita emission for different countries:


India has for long been arguing that decisions on capping world (and India's) emission levels should be taken from the per capita perspective. The caps will determine how much carbon India can emit in the future. Remember as India develops, emissions are likely to go up. So in other words carbon caps are a cap on development.

Developed countries are saying dont look at the per capita emissions. They are asking us to look at the map below which is based on total emissions by each country. Here as you can see India has a sizable emission.

The map below shows the total emission by country. The size of the country has been scaled based on its emission:


Developed countries want emission caps to be decided based on this map. But by this measure India's emissions cannot go up by much more in future.

The Indian government which was strongly pitching the per capita line till very recently seems to be bending and accepting total emission as a basis for caps.

Carbon Footprint: Think Smart

Several airline booking sites tell you how much carbon dioxide your flight will emit. They even offer to plant trees to offset the carbon dioxide you will emit in your travel for a small fee. For example, a Delhi-Bangalore flight emits 194.5 Kgs of carbon dioxide, and a grown tree on average absorbs 20.3 Kgs of carbon in a year. Ofcourse many other everyday things we do emit carbon dioxide - we use electric appliances, drive cars, eat inorganically grown food, etc.


There are several carbon footprint calculators online including this one which is specifically made for people living in India. It seems the global average carbon footprint is 3.9 tonnes/annum and the Indian average is 1.6 tonnes/annum. And mine is 5 tonnes/annum. Ofcourse that is not counting the 4 trees I have planted in my lifetime so far :)

Anyway, is it really possible to reduce the average carbon footprint at an individual level? To see that I tried to see what is contributing to my 5 tonnes/annum output. I drive to office, I travel by air/train a few times a year. And it turns out driving to office and air/train trips are the major contributors to my carbon footprint. Without these two I am just below the national average at 1.59 tonnes/annum. Looks like I do most things other Indians do and additionally drive to work and travel by air/train more frequently.

As our economy grows, can we really cut down on travel? It seems natural to expect that there will be even more travel by more individuals. India has set a goal of 20 to 25 per cent reduction in carbon intensity by 2020, compared to the 2005 levels. In 2005 I am guessing the national average would have been close to 1.3 tonnes/annum per Indian. So India is committing to around 1 ton/annum/Indian.

In itself this is not a bad goal to have. But to get there are we up to the challenge of devising new technologies that allow us to grow but still have a smaller carbon footprint? Our schools and colleges are still hung up on teaching about old technologies and methods not catering to this green economy. A computer science course in IIT has no green computing methods in it. Graduates of our key institutions still come out having no knowledge about how to create the new technologies that will allow India to advance while still keeping our carbon commitments. We have many new IITs but all of them teach the same old courses in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering.

In the 90s we could get on the IT bandwagon because we produced computer science students and other technically qualified graduates in large numbers who could go out there and solve the problems in the IT area. But today we seem stuck on the model of creating more of these for a tomorrow that may require other skills.

Smart Meters

Electricity needs to be consumed at the speed of light. So the very moment it is generated at a hydro electric, thermal, nuclear or wind power plant it needs to be consumed by some household or industry.

Usually electric supply companies provision for an average supply load. But what happens say during peak hours in the Delhi summer is that the demand far outstrips the supply, and that is when load shedding happens.



One very simple way of controlling this is to have smart meters that charge as per the supply demand curve. So when the demand is very high say during 5-9 pm when airconditioners and many other high consumption devices are on, the charge could be higher. This will prompt customers to only use the required appliances during this peak hour.

There is an initial cost of installing such meters but eventually the savings that they offer could be immense.

You Live in a City, Dont You?

If you were to randomly ask that question to everybody on this earth, the probability of being correct is now over 50%.

As of 2007, over 50% of the world lives in cities. By 2050 this number will be over 70%. In India more than 40 cities have a population of over 1 million.



We associate urbanization with progress. For a country like India, economic and social progress has meant that more and more of us today live in cities.

But this also means that the cities are getting strained for resources. There is a strain on water, energy, transportation to name a few resources.

We need better ways to organize ourselves and distribute the available resources. We need to make the cities a livable environment for larger and larger number of people.

The current mode of development involves consumption of available resources without any means of replenishing them. This has led to rampant destruction of the environment.

How do you think we can allow the cities to grow and flourish without harming the environment?

ISRO Lacks Confidence

The moon has water it has now been confirmed by analyzing data obtained from NASA's Moon Minerology Mapper (M3). In the following paper that appeared in Science, the authors have reported their scientific findings:

Character and Spatial Distribution of OH/H2O on the Surface of the Moon Seen by M3 on Chandrayaan-1
C. M. Pieters¹, J. N. Goswami², R. N. Clark³, M. Annadurai⁴, J. Boardman⁵, B. Buratti⁶, J.-P. Combe ⁷, M. D. Dyar⁸, R. Green⁶, J. W. Head¹, C. Hibbitts⁹, M. Hicks ⁶, P. Isaacson¹, R. Klima¹, G. Kramer⁷, S. Kumar¹⁰, E. Livo³, S. Lundeen⁶, E. Malaret¹¹, T. McCord⁷, J. Mustard¹, J. Nettles¹, N. Petro¹², C. Runyon¹³, M. Staid¹⁴, J. Sunshine¹⁵, L. A. Taylor¹⁶, S. Tompkins¹⁷, P. Varanasi<sup>6

1</sup> Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
² Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, India.; Indian Space Research Organization, Bangalore, India.
³ U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO 80225, USA.
⁴ Indian Space Research Organization, Bangalore, India.
⁵ Analytical Imaging and Geophysics, Boulder, CO 80303, USA.
⁶ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
⁷ Bear Fight Center, Winthrop, WA 98862,USA.
⁸ Mt. Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 01075, USA.
⁹ Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723–6005, USA.
¹⁰ National Remote Sensing Agency, Hyderabad, India.
¹¹ Applied Coherent Technology Corporation, Herndon, VA 22070, USA.
¹² NASA Goddard, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
¹³ College of Charleston, Charleston, SC 29424, USA.
¹⁴ Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ 85719–2395, USA.
¹⁵ University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
¹⁶ University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996–1410, USA.
¹⁷ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, VA 22203, USA.

This is a wonderful achievement. Three Indian Scientists, J. N. Goswami, M. Annadurai and S. Kumar, from PRL, ISRO and NRSA are listed as authors in this seminal paper.


But what happened to ISRO's own instruments? M3 was NASA's instrument riding on the Chandrayaan. ISRO claimed that they had found water ten months ago when ISRO's own Moon Impact Probe (MIP) landed on the moon. But why did they wait for NASA to come out with the announcement first? Why didn't they have the confidence to come out with the findings before anyone else? Why couldn't ISRO beat NASA in announcing this seminal finding?

Why is ISRO sitting on the large amounts of data collected by various instruments aboard the Chandrayaan rather than analyzing it and beating others in making path breaking discoveries. In hindsight it is easy to look for information in the data. But why didnt the ISRO scientists draw the right conclusions at the right time from the data that they had. The fact remains that ISRO didnt have the confidence to beat NASA in this announcement.

But this is only the beginning, I hope ISRO will look closely into all the data they have collected over the past many months and come out with path breaking discoveries on their own rather than wait for others to lead the way.

Read: The Chandrayaan-I and Water on the Moon Series