{"id":107070,"date":"2020-05-14T10:07:24","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T17:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/laser-powered-rover-to-explore-moons-dark-shadows"},"modified":"2020-05-14T10:07:24","modified_gmt":"2020-05-14T17:07:24","slug":"laser-powered-rover-to-explore-moons-dark-shadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/laser-powered-rover-to-explore-moons-dark-shadows","title":{"rendered":"Laser-powered rover to explore Moon\u2019s dark shadows"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/laser-powered-rover-to-explore-moons-dark-shadows2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A laser light shone through the dark could power robotic exploration of the most tantalising locations in our Solar System: the permanently-shadowed craters around the Moon\u2019s poles, believed to be rich in water ice and other valuable materials.<\/p>\n<p>ESA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/Enabling_Support\/Preparing_for_the_Future\/Discovery_and_Preparation\">Discovery &amp; Preparation programme<\/a> funded the design of a laser system to keep a rover supplied with power from up to 15 km away while it explores some of these dark craters.<\/p>\n<p>At the highest lunar latitudes, the Sun stays low on the horizon all year round, casting long shadows that keep sunken craters mired in permanent shadow, potentially on a timescale of billions of years. Data from NASA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov\/\">Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter<\/a>, India\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.isro.gov.in\/Spacecraft\/chandrayaan-1\">Chandrayaan-1<\/a> and ESA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/Science_Exploration\/Space_Science\/SMART-1\/SMART-1_factsheet\">SMART-1<\/a> orbiters show these \u2018permanently shadowed regions\u2019 are rich in hydrogen, strongly suggesting water ice can be found there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A laser light shone through the dark could power robotic exploration of the most tantalising locations in our Solar System: the permanently-shadowed craters around the Moon\u2019s poles, believed to be rich in water ice and other valuable materials. ESA\u2019s Discovery &amp; Preparation programme funded the design of a laser system to keep a rover supplied [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1635,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}