New Delhi, March 7 -- Buried beneath the Moon's surface, hidden reserves of water ice may be more abundant than once believed. Fresh findings from India's Chandrayaan 3 mission suggest that future astronauts could one day tap into this frozen resource not just for drinking water, but to cool equipment, produce oxygen and even fuel deep-space exploration.

The Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Chandrayaan 3 successfully soft-landed near the Moon's south pole on August 23, 2023. The study, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, is based on data gathered by Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE), a payload aboard Vikram, the mission's lander module.

ChaSTE was designed to measure the thermal co...