Water Right Under their (Lunar) Noses

(Discover)  This article was written by Discover'sSmriti Rao.

Over the last year, scientists have discovered that the moon isn't a bone-dry place, as we previously imagined. Water ice has been spotted not just at the lunar south pole but also the north pole, and scientists have noted that the north pole deposits contain enough water ice to sustain a human lunar base.

Now, scientists studying hundreds of pounds of moon rocks brought back by Apollo astronauts have found that samples containing the mineral apatite have minute traces of water.

The new analyses of the samples, revealed last week at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas, show that the evidence of the moon's water was right under scientists' noses for almost 40 years-they just didn't have sensitive enough instruments to detect it.

The water levels detected in Apollo moon rocks and volcanic glasses are in the thousands of parts per million, at most-which explains why analyses of the samples in the late 1960s and early 1970s concluded that the moon was absolutely arid..

Three different research teams found traces of water in apatite samples. Using a technique called secondary ion mass spectrometry, which bombards a sample with ions and then weighs the ejected secondary ions in a mass spectrometer to determine their atomic masses and abundances and abundances, scientists found water in minuscule quantities in the apatite-up to 6,000 parts per million. The apatite examined by one team was taken from one of the moon's mares-the dark regions that are believed to have been formed by ancient magma oceans. This is the first time that water has been found in lunar magmatic material.

One of the research teams also found that the ratio of hydrogen isotopes in the apatite's water differed greatly from the isotope mix found in earthly water, leading scientists to question where the water on the moon came from. Researcher James Greenwood believes comets may have crashed into the infant moon before its magma ocean crystallised, supplying the water. Or it may have come from a Mars-sized planet, dubbed Theia, that slammed into Earth 4.5 billion years ago to make the moon make the moon.].

Another possibility proposed by geoscientist Francis McCubbin is that when that collission happened, not quite all the water was driven off when chunks of Earth were flung spaceward to form the moon-in other words, the water may be from an ancient version Earth.

By Smriti Rao
Reprinted with permission from Discover

[RoboBlogger]

I wonder why we are so interested in finding water up there. We're only going to end up polluting it anyways.

[scottyusa]

This is too funny. President Kennedy robbed social security to get us to the moon. All we did was plant a flag and bring back some rocks. 41 years later, we discover water at the poles without even going there. Now that we have discovered this and are not planning on returning we have a problem. Other countries, China is one I believe, are gearing up to go there. It won't be long before the moon becomes a military base. Oops, I guess it's not that funny after all.

[thejoker12]

My understanding is that most countries signed an agreement not to harvest the moon except the United States due to the value of that mineral. Speaking of harvest, pictures of the moon shot by NASA show smudged immages as if luner buildings were being hidden.

[ToolMangler1]

Harvesting the Moon??? Everybody knows that to mess with the Moon will spell disaster for earth. if the Lunar orbit changes very much, we will have tides that will resemble tsunamies. The only thing the Moon is good for is a low gravity spaceport. with the Moon as a launch point, Mars is a very doable project for mining and manufacturing.

[RoboBlogger]

We're humans. We are required to deplete anything and everything we come in contact with. That's our nature and our downfall.

[edward1975-2009]

There will be a new race to the moon and it won't be about science. There is a mineral that is abundant on the moon, that can be used to create a "cleaner" nuclear fuel, which in turn will create a cleaner energy for the use of the world community. Nothing like the posibility of making a buck to stir technology.