00:00 The world over, countries, companies and even individuals are turning to the moon, racing
00:08 with each other to fly their flags on the lunar south pole.
00:13 The Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO has explained why nations are investing
00:19 resources to reach the moon's south pole.
00:22 Simply put, it is where scientists believe that there could be millions of tons of water.
00:28 A 1998 NASA mission, the Lunar Prospector found evidence that the highest concentration
00:34 of water ice was in the south pole's shadowed craters.
00:39 The moon's craters have been untouched by sunlight for billions of years.
00:44 This, scientists believe, could give them an undisturbed record of the solar system's
00:49 origins.
00:50 Craters in this region are permanently in shadow and are estimated to hold nearly 1
00:56 million tons of water.
00:59 The surface of the moon in this region has traces of hydrogen, ammonia, methane, sodium,
01:05 mercury and silver, making it an untapped source of essential resources.
01:11 Its elemental and positional advantages make it a suitable pit stop for future space exploration.
01:17 It's the frozen water on the moon that scientists are most interested in at this point.
01:24 As early as the 1960s, before the first Apollo landing, scientists had speculated that water
01:30 could exist on the moon.
01:31 But the samples that the Apollo crews returned with in the late 1960s and early 1970s appeared
01:37 to be dry.
01:38 In 2008, Brown University researchers again tested those lunar samples with new technology
01:45 and found hydrogen inside tiny beads of volcanic glass.
01:50 In 2009, a NASA instrument aboard the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1
01:56 probe detected water on the moon's surface.
01:59 In the same year, another NASA probe to the lunar South Pole found water ice below the
02:04 surface.
02:08 Scientists are interested in pockets of ancient water ice because they could provide a record
02:13 of lunar volcanoes, material that comets and asteroids delivered to Earth, and the origin
02:18 of oceans.
02:19 If water ice exists in sufficient quantities, it could be a source of drinking water for
02:25 moon exploration and could help cool equipment.
02:29 Water on the moon could also be broken down to produce hydrogen for fuel and oxygen to
02:34 breathe, support missions to Mars, or lunar mining.
02:38 The 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty prohibits any nation from claiming ownership
02:44 of the moon, but there is no provision that would stop commercial operations.
02:49 Attempted landings on the moon have failed before.
02:53 Only last week, Russia's Lunar 25 craft spun out of control just before landing and crashed.
02:58 The South Pole is full of craters and deep trenches.
03:02 Both the United States and China have planned missions to the South Pole.
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