Fraser Cain on Nostr: There are large deposits of ice in the Moon's permanently shadowed craters. The ...
There are large deposits of ice in the Moon's permanently shadowed craters. The challenge is harvesting it for a future lunar base. Solar-powered rovers can't operate in the permanent darkness of the craters. Engineers have developed a design for an ice-mining rover powered by americium-241, which has a half-life of 432 years. This could give the rover enough electricity to operate for decades, heating the ice and trapping water vapor and other volatiles as they escape.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576524005459?dgcid=rss_sd_all Published at
2024-09-24 17:12:05Event JSON
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"content": "There are large deposits of ice in the Moon's permanently shadowed craters. The challenge is harvesting it for a future lunar base. Solar-powered rovers can't operate in the permanent darkness of the craters. Engineers have developed a design for an ice-mining rover powered by americium-241, which has a half-life of 432 years. This could give the rover enough electricity to operate for decades, heating the ice and trapping water vapor and other volatiles as they escape.\n\nhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576524005459?dgcid=rss_sd_all\n\nhttps://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/113/193/643/221/983/443/original/ada7711dd63fde27.jpg",
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