|
| Artist’s illustration of China’s Chang’e 5 lander on the Moon. |
Scientists detected water trapped inside glass spherules on the moon after
analyzing soil samples brought back by China's Chang'e-5 mission.
Chinese researchers may have discovered billions of tons of water inside
strange glass spheres buried on the moon, and they could be used as a future
water source for moon bases, a new study suggests.
The tiny glass spherules, collected in lunar soil samples and brought to Earth
by China's Chang'e-5 mission in December 2020, could be so abundant that they
store up to 330 billion tons (300 metric tons) of water across the moon's
surface, the new analysis, published March 28 in the journal Nature
Geoscience, shows.
The glass spherules, also known as impact glasses or microtektites, form when
meteorites smash into the moon at tens to hundreds of thousands of miles per
hour, blasting chunks of lunar crust into the air. Inside these airborne
plumes, silicate minerals heated to molten temperatures by the force of the
impact combine to form tiny glass beads that are sprinkled like crumbs over
the surrounding landscape.
The moon's soil contains oxygen, which means that the beads do too. When
struck with ionized hydrogen atoms (protons) from solar wind, the oxygen in
the molten spheres reacts to form water that is sucked inside the silicate
capsules. Over time, some of the spheres become buried beneath lunar dust
particles, known as regolith, and are trapped underground with the water still
inside.
At the right temperatures, some of these beads release the water into the
moon's atmosphere and onto its surface, acting as a reservoir that is slowly
refilled over time, the researchers said. This could make these spheres an
ideal source of water, as well as hydrogen and oxygen, for space agencies
like NASA and the China National Space Administration (CNSA) that want to
build bases on the moon. The CSNSA expects its moon base project to be
completed as soon as 2029.
"If we want to extract the water in impact glass beads for future lunar
exploration, first we collect them, then boil them in an oven and cool the
released water vapor. Finally, you will get some liquid water in a bottle,"
study co-author Sen Hu, a planetary geologist at the Chinese Academy of
Sciences' Institute of Geology and Geophysics, told
Live Science
in an email. "Another benefit is that impact glass beads are [common] in
lunar soils, from equator to polar and from east to west, globally and
evenly."
China's Chang'e 5 mission, named for a Chinese goddess of the moon, was the
fifth in a series of missions that aim to lay the groundwork for future
human landings on the moon's surface. The mission landed on the moon to
scoop material from its surface before returning to Earth in December 2020.
Reference:
He, H., Ji, J., Zhang, Y. et al. A solar wind-derived water reservoir on the
Moon hosted by impact glass beads. Nat. Geosci. (2023).
DOI: 10.1038/s41561-023-01159-6
Tags:
Space & Astrophysics