/ David Pescovitz / 5:00 pm Wed Jul 9, 2008

Moon has water

Today, researchers announced that they've found water molecules in moon matter retrieved by NASA Apollo missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The water was coaxed out of volcanic glass pebbles (like those seen here). From National Geographic:
News Bigphotos Images 080709-Moon-Water Big The researchers believe the water was ejected along with magma when "fire fountains" erupted more than three billion years ago from the moon's surface.

The finding raises new questions about the long-standing "giant impact" theory, which holds that the moon was formed more than a billion years prior to that when a Mars-sized body slammed into Earth and sent debris into orbit.

Researchers once believed the impact was hot enough and long enough to vaporize volatile elements, including the building blocks of water.

The new study "puts some limits on how hot this planet was and how quickly the volatile elements condensed back into the solid," said study lead author Alberto Saal, a geologist at Brown University.
Water on the moon (National Geographic)

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  1. Samples that have been on Earth for 40 years are found to have some water? Hmmm..

    I’m sure they did a good job, but it does seem a little odd that it took 40 years to find “minimal amounts of water”.

  3. Well, isn’t that just typical? Mars has these vast underground blocks of ice, and the Moon just has to make this pathetic attempt to grab some limelight with its water molecules. Such a wannabe! Face it, honey, you had your day — forty years ago! — but we’re in love with Mars now.

  4. Underground blocks of ice? Nah. What the rover found was moisture leakage from the interior. That’s right – Dinosaurs and unicorns roam inside Hollow Mars!!!

  5. Of course Mars has huge underground blocks of ice. We just need someone to stick his hand in the alien-designed machine and melt them to break the monopoly on air.

  7. Okay. Where are my analysts/spacegeeks/engineers/mathletes to tell me at what point is it more reliable and economical in re Moon v. Mars to mine water for … (insert mission or idea here)

  8. Wasn’t there an announcement several years ago that water (ice) crystals were discovered on the dark side of the moon?

    Or was that just speculation?

  9. Science was wrong again??? The moon wasn’t formed as debris from earth??? Score another point for intelligent design.

  10. BS AGAIIIIIIIIIN !!!!

    Already there is a lot of stuff weird about the moon like:

    Perfect synchronicity so we can see always only one side of the moon…

    The size of the moon is EXACTLY the same one than the sun in the sky, we are the only planet where we can have weirdly perfect eclipse…

    We stopped the exploration of the moon, Why ? what did they find there ? Why spending 1000 billions dollars to go there and take some pictures for the world media and bring back some stone… How US could deal with this amazing cost and the vietnam war cost at the same time ???

    Have they been there ? Probably but we don’t know anything… A Hoax was possible too, it s only a little propaganda problem during a cold war…

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