A recent discovery of water on the moon does not bode well for proposals to build astronomical telescopes on the lunar surface, a Chinese scientist says. A study concludes molecules of moon water vaporizing in sunlight could scatter and heavily distort observations taken by any telescopes built on the moon.

The research will be presented at the upcoming European Planetary Science Congress in Rome.

"Last year, scientists discovered a fine dew of water covering the moon," astronomer Zhao Hua, a scientist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said. "This water vaporizes in sunlight and is then broken down by ultraviolet radiation, forming hydrogen and hydroxyl molecules."

Those lunar hydroxyl molecules may be present in levels high enough to pose an interference or contamination risk to any telescopes on the moon's surface, researchers say.

Lunar-based telescopes could have several advantages over ground-based telescopes on Earth, including a cloudless sky and low seismic activity, scientists say.

But in 2009 observations by several spacecraft from NASA, Japan and India returned definitive proof of the chemical signature for water as well as water ice at the moon's poles.

This has implications for China's unmanned Chang'e 3 moon lander mission, currently scheduled to launch in 2013.

The lander is intended to operate on the moon's sunlit surface and be equipped with a solar-powered ultraviolet telescope.

"At certain ultraviolet wavelengths, hydroxyl molecules cause a particular kind of scattering where photons are absorbed and rapidly re-emitted.Our calculations suggest that this scattering will contaminate observations by sunlit telescopes." Zhao said.

Source: AFP and Chinese Acadamy of Sciences