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Home The Moon is covered with craters and rocks, creating a surface “roughness” that casts shadows, as seen in this photograph from the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. These cold shadows may allow water ice to accumulate as frost even at daytime. The area of detail is highlighted in the following illustration. (NASA) The Moon is covered with craters and rocks, creating a surface “roughness” that casts shadows, as seen in this photograph from the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. These cold shadows may allow water ice to accumulate as frost even at daytime. The area of detail is highlighted in the following illustration. (NASA)

The Moon is covered with craters and rocks, creating a surface “roughness” that casts shadows, as seen in this photograph from the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. These cold shadows may allow water ice to accumulate as frost even at daytime. The area of detail is highlighted in the following illustration. (NASA)

The Moon is covered with craters and rocks, creating a surface “roughness” that casts shadows, as seen in this photograph from the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. These cold shadows may allow water ice to accumulate as frost even at daytime. The area of detail is highlighted in the following illustration. (NASA)

The Moon is covered with craters and rocks, creating a surface “roughness” that casts shadows, as seen in this photograph from the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. These cold shadows may allow water ice to accumulate as frost even at daytime. The area of detail is highlighted in the following illustration. (NASA)

This illustration zooms in on the area of detail indicated in the previous photo, showing how shadows enable water ice to survive on the sunlit lunar surface. When shadows move as the Sun tracks overhead, the exposed frost lingers long enough to be detected by spacecraft. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)