Water on the moon aplenty, locked inside volcanic grains of sand

Water on the moon, thought to exist in scant amounts, exists in abundance after all, albeit in a form unlike what commonly appears here on Earth.

A new study published in the journal Science reports that scientists have discovered that water on the moon is locked inside orange glass soil that are found scattered on the surface of the moon. Samples of these miniscule crystals were taken by Apollo 17 back in 1972. But it was not until the development of sophisticated imaging tools in recent years that the molten rock crystals were fully analyzed.

NASA had already confirmed earlier through its Centaur project that water on the moon existed. It was thought to have originated from comets or meteors which created the impact craters on the moon's surface. The new study suggests a different explanation: water came from deep inside the moon itself and may have broken through the surface by lunar magma.

The grain samples from the moon had a water content of 750 parts per million. That is the same amount that can be found in magma inside the Earth and 100 times higher than original estimates. The material therefore may likely come from inside the moon rather than from comets.

This may run contrary to a crucial point in the long-held hypothesis that the moon was torn apart from the earth by the impact of a large-sized object. That theory says water on the moon is practically non-existent because all water has dried up as a result of the impact.

The little amount of water on the moon found later by astronauts was then attributed to comets hitting the moon. But the new study suggests that the moon's interior itself may have been capable of producing its own water in the past.