The search for water on the surface of the anhydrous Moon had remained an unfulfilled quest for 40 years. However, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) on Chandrayaan-1 has recently detected absorption features near 2.8 to 3.0 micrometers on the surface of the Moon. For silicate bodies, such features are typically attributed to hydroxyl- and/or water-bearing materials. On the Moon, the feature is seen as a widely distributed absorption that appears strongest at cooler high latitudes and at several fresh feldspathic craters. The general lack of correlation of this feature in sunlit M3 data with neutron spectrometer hydrogen abundance data suggests that the formation and retention of hydroxyl and water are ongoing surficial processes. Hydroxyl/water production processes may feed polar cold traps and make the lunar regolith a candidate source of volatiles for human exploration.

[1] The NASA Discovery Moon Mineralogy Mapper imaging spectrometer was selected to pursue a wide range of science objectives requiring measurement of composition at fine spatial scales over the full lunar surface. To pursue these objectives, a broad spectral range imaging spectrometer with high uniformity and high signal-to-noise ratio capable of measuring compositionally diagnostic spectral absorption features from a wide variety of known and possible lunar materials was required. For this purpose the Moon Mineralogy Mapper imaging spectrometer was designed and developed that measures the spectral range from 430 to 3000 nm with 10 nm spectral sampling through a 24 degree field of view with 0.7 milliradian spatial sampling. The instrument has a signal-to-noise ratio of greater than 400 for the specified equatorial reference radiance and greater than 100 for the polar reference radiance. The spectral cross-track uniformity is >90% and spectral instantaneous field-of-view uniformity is >90%. The Moon Mineralogy Mapper was launched on Chandrayaan-1 on the 22nd of October. On the 18th of November 2008 the Moon Mineralogy Mapper was turned on and collected a first light data set within 24 h. During this early checkout period and throughout the mission the spacecraft thermal environment and orbital parameters varied more than expected and placed operational and data quality constraints on the measurements. On the 29th of August 2009, spacecraft communication was lost. Over the course of the flight mission 1542 downlinked data sets were acquired that provide coverage of more than 95% of the lunar surface. An end-to-end science data calibration system was developed and all measurements have been passed through this system and delivered to the Planetary Data System (PDS.NASA.GOV). An extensive effort has been undertaken by the science team to validate the Moon Mineralogy Mapper science measurements in the context of the mission objectives. A focused spectral, radiometric, spatial, and uniformity validation effort has been pursued

Bangalore, the IT capital of India, is one of the fastest growing city of Asia. Rapid urbanization of Bangalore during the last two decades has posed a serious threat to the existence of ecological systems, specifically water bodies which play a crucial part in supporting life. Remote Sensing Satellite images can play a significant role in investigation, dynamic monitoring and planning of natural surface water resources. Landsat-7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper(ETM+) imagery havehigh spatial, temporal and multispectral resolution and thereforeprovides reliable and accurate data to detect changesin extent of water bodies. In this paper, a study has been conducted to detect the changesin water body extent during the period of 2002 to 2014 using various methods namely Water Ratio Index (WRI), Normalised Difference Water Index (NDWI), Modified Normalised Difference Water Index (MNDWI),supervised classification and wetness component of K-T transformationand the results are presented.Several iterations were performed to determine a suitable threshold for effective water detection in urban areas for each of the methods. The performance of each of the algorithms was compared and verified via ground survey. This study indicates a considerable variation in water surface area of the city over a span of 12 years.

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