The spectrometer will collect molecules — such as water, argon, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane — from the Moon’s exosphere and sort them based on their masses to identify whether their volume changes throughout the lunar day. The PITMS experiment will also explore whether water molecules, possibly created on the surface by the solar wind, are being released into the exosphere as the Moon’s surface heats up during the sunny part of the lunar day. Since volatile compounds such as water could be resources for human exploration, scientist hope to better understand how it forms, how it moves during a lunar day, and to gather some insight on whether water might be moving from different regions toward the cold, dark craters at the poles, where it gets trapped in deposits that could be mined.