New Study Suggests the Moon Is 'Surprisingly Water-Rich'

One of the cardinal factors in whether nosotros end up colonizing the Moon is how much water is present there already. Water is heavy, and then transporting plenty of it to the lunar surface from Earth to support life would simply be too expensive. Now a new study funded by the NASA Lunar Advanced Science and Exploration Research Program is suggesting there'southward a lot more water on the Moon than nosotros thought.

The report was carried out by researchers at Brownish Academy and provides new evidence that at that place could be significant deposits of water deep inside the lunar interior. In some areas, at that place could be as much water as that independent inside Earth'southward drapery.

The enquiry team used a combination of satellite data and samples brought back to World from the Apollo 15 and 17 missions to form their conclusions. The volcanic glass beads brought back on those Apollo missions contained trace amounts of water. But the crystalline formations within the beads suggested similar amounts of water as basalts (volcanic rock formed from the rapid cooling of lava) in Earth's mantle.

In the image you see above, the colored areas represent elevated water content compared to the surrounding terrain. Yellowish and red areas evidence the richest areas of water.

That on its own isn't plenty to bear witness at that place'south meaning deposits of water on the Moon, unless of course the same deposits and conditions are found elsewhere on the lunar surface. That's where the satellite data comes in, which institute virtually all volcanic deposits on the surface "exhibit signatures of water."

According to Ralph Milliken, lead author of the study and an associate professor in Brown's Section of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, "The fact that nearly all of them exhibit signatures of water suggests that the Apollo samples are not anomalous, then it may be that the bulk interior of the Moon is wet."

If the interior of the Moon is as water-rich as the researchers at present believe, information technology does heighten a question about the verbal origin of the water. But it also increases the chances of humans forming a colony on the Moon because the water is already there to back up it.