After a 20-year lull, scientists are once again setting their sight on the moon. With past cruises to the moon throwing up new and perplexing questions rather than satisfactory answers, lunar scientists have an onerous task ahead. Among the questions to which they seek answers are: how has the moon evolved? How did the earth get such a huge satellite? Is there water there? They also hope to pick up fingerprints that will better help them establish the evolution of the solar system (believed to have come into existence some 4.6 billion years ago).

A conference in Rajasthan So it was that some 180 lunar experts from 16 countries, including those with active lunar programmes, gathered in Udaipur, Rajasthan, in the last week of November 2004 to pick each other's brains. Apart from discussing the preliminary results from smart-i