NASA announced that it selected 13 possible areas from south pole of the Moon as potential landing points in the future for its mission Artemis III.
Artemis III is a project that has an objective to send astronauts again to the Moon in 2025.
"Selecting these regions means we are one giant leap closer to returning humans to the Moon for the first time since Apollo," Mark Kirasich, deputy associate administrator for the Artemis Campaign Development Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said.
NASA said that each of these areas is 'located within six degrees of latitude of the lunar South Pole', a region where it is believed that water ice might exist in the hidden craters, with uninterrupted access to the sunlight during a period of six and a half days, a time Artemis III mission is expected to take.
Apollo missions of more than 50 years ago reached to equatorial regions of the Moon, where the days with sunlight are longer, reaching as much as two weeks.
The North Pole, on the other hand, can only receive a few days of sunlight, which increases the difficulty of the missions, limiting as well the time periods NASA can carry out its launches.
"Several of the proposed sites within the regions are located among some of the oldest parts of the Moon, and together with the permanently shadowed regions, provide the opportunity to learn about the history of the Moon through previously unstudied lunar materials," Sarah Noble, Artemis lunar science lead for NASA's Planetary Science Division, said.
