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rfmcdonaldThe unexpected discovery of large amounts of water on the Moon has scientists quite surprised.
As The Australian's article observes, this much-increased amount of water may also make the establishment of moon bases more viable, since insufficient water supplies are a serious problem for plans of lunar colonization. I myself wonder whether or not the presence of substantial amounts of lunar water might provide a suitable environment for life. But then, the water has to be usable, and insofar as lunar colonization is concerned you need an economic rationale first. (No, mining helium-3 at unnecessarily great expense for the fusion reactors we won't have for another generation is not a suitable rationale.)
There’s a lot more water on the moon than previously thought, a discovery forcing re-evaluation of the current theory on how Earth’s satellite was formed.
Study of moon samples retrieved nearly four decades ago revealed as much water as can be found in places beneath the Earth’s crust, according to a paper published Thursday in Science Express.
Most scientists believe that the moon was created through the accretion of material thrown out by the impact of a huge object hitting Earth. The moon’s once-presumed dryness was thought to have been caused by the dispersion of hydrogen through that catastrophic event. Finding water in such quantity as described in the new research casts a question over this prevailing theory.
James Van Orman, an associate professor of geochemistry at Case Western Reserve University and member of the team behind the new discovery, said that finding the water does not invalidate the overall creation theory. But he said there will have to be new work done to understand the chain of events following such an impact.
The surprising discovery came by looking at moon samples retrieved by the Apollo 17, a lunar mission dating to the time when scientists believed the moon was nothing but a dry expanse. Dr. Van Orman said in a phone interview that getting funding and permission to re-examine these old samples was no easy task. But the findings were dramatic. Samples showed 100 times as much water as had been thought.
[. . .]
With these new findings in hand, geochemist and team leader Erik Hauri, who could not be reached Thursday, was arguing for the retrieval of more such materials.
“We can conceive of no sample type that would be more important to return to Earth than these … which have been mapped not only on the moon but throughout the inner solar system,” Dr. Hauri, with Carnegie’s department of terrestrial magnetism, said in a statement.
Three years ago the team behind the latest discovery announced that they had found ice at the lunar poles. This new discovery raises the possibility that the ice did not come from comets and meteorites, but from long-ago eruptions on the moon.
As The Australian's article observes, this much-increased amount of water may also make the establishment of moon bases more viable, since insufficient water supplies are a serious problem for plans of lunar colonization. I myself wonder whether or not the presence of substantial amounts of lunar water might provide a suitable environment for life. But then, the water has to be usable, and insofar as lunar colonization is concerned you need an economic rationale first. (No, mining helium-3 at unnecessarily great expense for the fusion reactors we won't have for another generation is not a suitable rationale.)
