This could be big.
New Source of Water on the Moon Estimated to Hold 270 Trillion Kilograms of Water
Scientists have found a new source of water on the moon: trapped in tiny glass beads formed millions of years ago when asteroids and other impactors hit the lunar surface.
In a study published in the Nature Geoscience journal on Monday, researchers estimated that the glass beads—pellets the width of strands of hair that are ubiquitous on the surface of the moon—collectively may hold up to 270 trillion kilograms of water. Enough to fill 100 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, this reservoir of water can potentially supply astronauts in future space exploration.
While the presence of water on the moon has been known for decades and confirmed through many studies, scientists were baffled by how water appears and disappears over the lunar day on the moon, which suggested there was a reservoir of water that had yet to be identified in the lunar soil.
This latest finding provides an answer. While the beads are tiny in size, ranging from a few tens of micrometers to a few millimeters, they have a water content of up to 0.2 percent of its weight.
Analyzing their hydration profile, researchers traced the origin of the water to the solar wind, a continual stream of protons and electrons that flows outward from the corona, the sun’s outermost layer of atmosphere, through the solar system. The solar-wind hydrogen reacts with oxygen present at the surface of the lunar glass beads, producing water that diffuses into the orbs, Hu said.
These beads also release their entrapped water into space, which explains the water cycle on the lunar surface, Hu said.
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