Possibility of life is our neighboring satellite moon has been a subject of curiosity and study. Set for launch in November 1, Lunar Flashlight is a small satellite mission that will use lasers to search for water. The technology will be used inside the darkest craters at the Moon’s South pole.
It has been understood that water ice exists below the lunar regolith and scientists do not know yet whether surface ice frost covers the floors inside cold and dark craters. NASA will send Lunar Flashlight which is a small satellite no larger than a briefcase to find out. It will use laser light on these dark craters. This will be like finding hidden treasure by shining flashlight into a cave. The mission will launch in mid-November abroad a Space X falcon 9 rocket.
“ The launch will put the satellite on a trajectory that will take about three months to reach its science orbit,” said John Baker, the mission’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion laboratory in Southern California. Then Lunar flashlight will try to find water ice on the surface of the Moon in places that nobody else has been able to look. After Launch mission navigators will slowly pull it back before it settles. Gravity from Earth and the Sun will slowly pull back before it settles into wide, looping science gathering orbit.
Lunar Flashlight will also be the first missions to use a four laser reflectometer to look for water ice on the Moon. It will work by using near infrared wavelengths that are readily absorbed by water to identify ice on the surface. With this new mission a question arises. Is there water on the moon and can there be life on the moon?
