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The Hubble Space Telescope has taken a rare look at the moon to gauge the amount of oxygen-bearing minerals in the lunar soil that could be mined by astronauts and used in a new moon mission.

NASA said Wednesday that the telescope's ultraviolet observations of two Apollo landing sites and an unexplored but geologically intriguing area will help scientists pick the best spots for robot and human exploration. The space agency hopes to return astronauts to the moon by 2018 using Apollo-like capsules and rockets made of shuttle parts.

This image provided by NASA and taken by the Hubble Space Telescope Aug. 21, 2005 shows Aristarchus crater on the earth's moon. NASA said Wednesday Oct. 19, 2005 that the telescope's ultraviolet observations of two Apollo landing sites and an unexplored but geologically intriguing area will help scientists pick the best spots for robot and human exploration. The space agency hopes to return astronauts to the moon by 2018 using Apollo-like capsules and rockets made of shuttle parts. (AP Photo/NASA) (AP)
The data also will benefit a lunar reconnaissance spacecraft to be launched in 2008.

NASA scientist Jim Garvin described the August observations as "CSI does the moon through Hubble."

"We're going to try to do forensic science using places on the moon we know, two of the Apollo sites particularly noteworthy for their soils," he said.

The space telescope photographed the landing sites of Apollo 15 and 17. Scientists know from rocks collected by the moonwalkers how much of the mineral ilmenite, an iron titanium oxide, is present at those locations.

Oxygen could be extracted from ilmenite with relative ease to provide air, water and rocket fuel for astronauts, allowing them to live off the land and helping to drive down exploration costs.

Hubble made 60 lunar observations over three days in August, around the time of the full moon. It has observed the moon just once before, in the late 1990s. The moon is a difficult target for the space telescope, which was not designed to track the fast-moving orb.

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