month When it comes to water, it might be a bit of a dark horse.
New analysis of mineralogy maps suggests that water and hydroxyl (another molecule made of hydrogen and oxygen) can be found in multiple locations across all latitudes and terrains of the moon, including where the sun shines most intensely.
It’s a discovery with multiple implications: it will help us understand the Moon’s geological history and ongoing processes, and could aid future manned missions to Earth’s moon.
“By utilizing these water-rich regions, future astronauts may be able to find water even closer to the equator. Until now, the poles, especially the deep polar shadow craters, were thought to be the only places where water could be found in abundance.” “It’s a very big deal,” says planetary scientist Roger Clark. of the Planetary Science Institute.
“Knowing where water exists not only helps us understand the Moon’s geological history, but also helps us know where astronauts might find water in the future.”
The Moon appears dry and devoid of water, and in some ways it is: there are no pools of liquid water on its surface, no lakes, puddles or rivers, but research is increasingly revealing that the Moon hides vast amounts of water.
Previous studies have suggested that large amounts of water may be hiding deep within the Moon’s craters, especially at higher latitudes. These deep pockets I have never touched The sun’s direct light and heat could be hiding the ice deposits. Several meters thick.
But other recent studies have found that water may exist on other parts of the moon, and now Clark and his colleagues’ work supports this finding: Water and hydroxyl (made of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom) appear to be fairly abundant on the moon, bound up in the minerals that make up the rocks and soil on its surface.
The researchers used data from the Lunar Mineralogy Mapping Instrument (M3) on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, which orbited the Moon and collected spectroscopic images of the Moon in 2008 and 2009. This data records infrared light reflected from the Moon and looks for spectral colors consistent with water and hydroxyl groups.
The researchers found that while water and hydroxyl are found at all latitudes on the Moon’s surface, these molecules are not very abundant in the lunar maria, but water-rich rocks excavated during impacts are found wherever such impacts have occurred.
Water won’t be there forever. Researchers have found that water on the moon’s surface is exposed during cratering and then slowly destroyed by solar wind radiation over millions of years. But this process leaves behind hydroxyl groups, which are also produced by the solar wind, which deposits hydrogen from the sun onto the lunar surface, where it combines with oxygen to form molecules.
“Taken together, all the evidence suggests that the Moon’s surface has a complex geology, with a large amount of water underground and a hydroxide layer on the surface.” Clark says“Both cratering and volcanism can bring water-rich material to the surface, and both have been observed in the lunar data.”
The researchers also discovered that the signature of water in pyroxene, a type of igneous rock, changes depending on the angle at which sunlight hits it. This solves a mystery about the Moon. Scientists had observed this changing signature but didn’t know what it meant. It seemed to suggest that water was moving on the Moon. It still could be, but not as much as the pyroxene signature suggested.
Finally, the team’s map sheds more light on another strange lunar mystery: lunar spirals, strange swirls on the moon’s surface that scientists aren’t sure what creates, though magnetic fields may play a role. Clark and his team found that the swirls contain very little water.
What that means for the mechanism of formation is unclear, but the feature is also found in parts of the Moon that don’t have any spirals. The researchers think that these areas could be ancient spirals that have eroded away, leaving only the signature of water that indicates they were once there. And that could help shed light on what the spirals actually are.
However, the discovery does suggest a potential water source for lunar explorers: By processing the hydroxide-rich minerals, future astronauts might be able to find a way to squeeze water out of the rock.
This study Planetary Science Journal.
