The presence of water on lunar surface was detected by India's own Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on Chandrayaan-I, a finding confirmed by US space agency NASA which also had an instrument onboard the craft, ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair said in Bangalore on Friday.

By establishing the presence of water signatures on moon, the country's maiden lunar mission made a "path- breaking" and "real discovery", Nair said at a press conference here.

The MIP while descending from Chandrayaan-I to moon, picked up strong signals of water particles, he said.

However, the signatures of waters are not in the form of sea, lake or even as a puddle or not even a drop. You cannot pick it up just like that," he said.

"It is embedded on the surface in the minerals and rocks and we have clear indication that the hydroxil (OH) as water molecules are present on the surface, may be at least for a few millimetres," he said.

According to Nair, the "quantity found is much larger than what was expected which is a real finding".

Apart from India's MIP, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) of NASA on board Chandrayaan-I also confirmed the presence of water.

Nair said that he disagrees with the "media version that Chandrayaan-I crashed or failed. Earlier, I had said the mission was a 95 per cent success. Now I say it is 110 per cent success."

Chandrayaan-I mission launched in October last year was aborted prematurely last month ending its two year life span.

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