Story highlights Water ice has been found at the lunar poles for the first time

The water ice could be used as a resource during future moon missions

(CNN) For the first time, scientists have uncovered direct evidence of water ice on the surface of the moon's polar regions. And the ice itself could be ancient, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists from the University of Hawaii and Brown University and Richard Elphic from NASA's Ames Research Center used data from NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument to make the discovery. The instrument is on the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, India's first lunar probe, which launched in 2008.

The instrument was designed to search for distinct signatures that prove the presence of water ice on the surface of the moon. This included gathering data that not only detected ice's reflective properties, but the way the molecules absorb infrared light -- which tells the difference between water and ice.

The distribution of surface ice at the moon's south pole (left) and north pole (right). Blue represents the ice locations, plotted over an image of the lunar surface.

Previous studies of the lunar poles suggested that ice could be present there, but the possible signs could have been explained due to other phenomenon as well.

The ice is in the darkest and coldest areas at the poles, in shadows of craters where sunlight never reaches due to the tilt of the moon's axis. The warmest temperatures in these areas don't go above negative-250 degrees Fahrenheit.

Read More