Scientific Study Identifies 1.5 Billion Year Old Cold Traps as Primary Targets for Lunar Ice Exploration

New research reveals lunar ice has accumulated for 1.5 billion years, pinpointing Haworth Crater as a top target for NASA’s Artemis missions.

By: AXL Media

Published: May 1, 2026, 6:43 AM EDT

Source: Information for this report was sourced from EurekAlert!

Strategic Shift Toward the Lunar South Pole for Resource Extraction

A new era of space exploration is centering on the lunar South Pole as NASA, Russia, and China compete to establish permanent bases. Unlike the Apollo missions, modern lunar programs are focused on locating water ice, a critical resource that can be processed into oxygen, drinking water, and rocket fuel. According to a study published in Nature Astronomy, this ice is not the result of a single event but has been building up over a 1.5 billion year period. Researchers emphasize that these deposits are essential for the viability of deep space travel and long term habitation.

Impact of Axial Tilt on Permanently Shadowed Regions

The Moon’s unique orientation, characterized by almost no axial tilt, creates deep craters at the poles that never receive direct sunlight. These permanently shadowed regions have expanded over billions of years as the Moon’s axis gradually straightened from a much greater tilt in the distant past. By calculating when specific craters lost exposure to the Sun, scientists have been able to determine the chronological age of these dark zones. This cooling process is what allowed certain craters to eventually become effective environments for ice preservation.

Differentiating Between Shadowed Areas and Functional Cold Traps

While many craters remain in perpetual darkness, not all are cold enough to keep ice from evaporating. For ice to persist for hundreds of millions of years, temperatures must remain below minus 160 degrees Celsius. These specific locations are known as cold traps. Prof. Oded Aharonson of Weizmann’s Earth and Planetary Sciences Department explained that geometric calculations were used to identify which regions function as true cold traps. Notably, the study revealed that Shackleton Crater, though shadowed for 3.5 billion years, only became a cold trap about 500 million years ago.