To most people it is just the Moon. But to Manuel Grande, it is the eighth continent of the world.

A British lunar scientist from Aberystwyth University, he helped to design the European Space Agency's instrument on board Chandrayaan-1 - a camera that will take X-ray images of the Moon's surface.

He hopes that the results will answer two tantalising questions: where did the Moon come from? And could it ever sustain human life?

“After the Apollo landings, people thought they knew a fair bit about the Moon - they'd seen people walking around up there,” he told The Times.

“But the more they looked at the results in detail, people realised the things we don't understand - like where it came from, or the possible existence of water.”

The United States Apollo missions landed on the Moon six times between 1969 and 1972, but always explored the same area - on the near side and on its equator - to ease the return to Earth.

Professor Grande's machine will take images of the entire Moon, analysing its glow to detect the presence of six key elements - iron, titanium, calcium, magnesium, silicon and aluminium.

He hopes that the results will help to solve the riddle of whether the Moon is an alien body that collided with the Earth, or is part of the Earth that was broken off after a collision with another body.

The findings might soon help to support human life on the Moon - for example, at a manned base that Nasa is planning to build.

“I don't expect there to be an independent republic of the Moon in my lifetime,” he said. “But I do think there may be more and more manned bases on the Moon in the next 20-30 years.”

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