Glass Beads On Moon's Surface May Hold Billions of Tons of Water, Scientists Say (theguardian.com) 28
Slashdot reader votsalo shares a report from the Guardian: Tiny glass beads strewn across the moon's surface contain potentially billions of tons of water that could be extracted and used by astronauts on future lunar missions, researchers say. The discovery is thought to be one of the most important breakthroughs yet for space agencies that have set their sights on building bases on the moon, as it means there could be a highly accessible source of not only water but also hydrogen and oxygen. "This is one of the most exciting discoveries we've made," said Mahesh Anand, a professor of planetary science and exploration at the Open University. "With this finding, the potential for exploring the moon in a sustainable manner is higher than it's ever been."
Anand and a team of Chinese scientists analyzed fine glass beads from lunar soil samples returned to Earth in December 2020 by the Chinese Chang'e-5 mission. The beads, which measure less than a millimeter across, form when meteoroids slam into the moon and send up showers of molten droplets. These then solidify and become mixed into the moon dust. Tests on the glass particles revealed that together they contain substantial quantities of water, amounting to between 300m and 270 billion tons across the entire moon's surface. "This is going to open up new avenues which many of us have been thinking about," said Anand. "If you can extract the water and concentrate it in significant quantities, it's up to you how you utilize it."
The latest research, published in Nature Geoscience, points to fine glass beads as the source of that surface water. Unlike frozen water lurking in permanently shaded craters, this should be far easier to extract by humans or robots working on the moon. "It's not that you can shake the material and water starts dripping out, but there's evidence that when the temperature of this material goes above 100C, it will start to come out and can be harvested," Anand said. The water appears to form when high-energy particles streaming from the sun -- the so-called solar wind -- strike the molten droplets. The solar wind contains hydrogen nuclei, which combine with oxygen in the droplets to produce water or hydroxyl ions. The water then becomes locked in the beads, but it can be released by heating the material. Further tests on the material showed the water diffuses in and out of the beads on the timeframe of a few years, confirming an active water cycle on the moon. According to Prof Sen Hu, a senior co-author of the study at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, such impact glasses could store and release water on other airless rocks in the solar system.
Anand and a team of Chinese scientists analyzed fine glass beads from lunar soil samples returned to Earth in December 2020 by the Chinese Chang'e-5 mission. The beads, which measure less than a millimeter across, form when meteoroids slam into the moon and send up showers of molten droplets. These then solidify and become mixed into the moon dust. Tests on the glass particles revealed that together they contain substantial quantities of water, amounting to between 300m and 270 billion tons across the entire moon's surface. "This is going to open up new avenues which many of us have been thinking about," said Anand. "If you can extract the water and concentrate it in significant quantities, it's up to you how you utilize it."
The latest research, published in Nature Geoscience, points to fine glass beads as the source of that surface water. Unlike frozen water lurking in permanently shaded craters, this should be far easier to extract by humans or robots working on the moon. "It's not that you can shake the material and water starts dripping out, but there's evidence that when the temperature of this material goes above 100C, it will start to come out and can be harvested," Anand said. The water appears to form when high-energy particles streaming from the sun -- the so-called solar wind -- strike the molten droplets. The solar wind contains hydrogen nuclei, which combine with oxygen in the droplets to produce water or hydroxyl ions. The water then becomes locked in the beads, but it can be released by heating the material. Further tests on the material showed the water diffuses in and out of the beads on the timeframe of a few years, confirming an active water cycle on the moon. According to Prof Sen Hu, a senior co-author of the study at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, such impact glasses could store and release water on other airless rocks in the solar system.
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"the water diffuses IN and out of the beads" (Score:5, Insightful)
How is there enough water on the moon near a bead for any significant amount of it to diffuse IN to the beads ?
Re: "the water diffuses IN and out of the beads" (Score:3)
Re: "the water diffuses IN and out of the beads" (Score:4, Funny)
Re: "the water diffuses IN and out of the beads" (Score:2)
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It could endanger the habitat of the Yellow Breasted Cock Gobbler.
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That is how water forms inside the beads.
That is not the same as "the water diffuses in and out of the beads".
Water+ (Score:5, Funny)
For comparison (Score:1)
The up-to number is about half the volume of Lake Erie. Roughly enough to cover the surface in a quarter of an inch of water.
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Sustainable (Score:5, Funny)
exploring the moon in a sustainable manner
They are kidding us, right?
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Of course exploring the moon should be done in a sustainable manner! Are you one of those people who doesn't believe in Lunar Warming or Crater Change? :D
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Replicating earth's biosphere (Score:2)
If we want to use it to make water representative of earth's biosphere we'll have to start introducing microplastics well before we intend to make use it it..
So, a small lake? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tests on the glass particles revealed that together they contain substantial quantities of water, amounting to between 300m and 270 billion tons across the entire moon's surface.
Lake Superior is 12,100 cubic kilometers, 12 trillion tonnes of water. 300 million tonnes of water is one forty-thousandth of that. So... your local neighborhood recreational lake. Spread out across the entire sphere of Luna. This is not an industrially exploitable resource. You could collect astronaut urine at a faster rate than you could mine the same amount of water from the Lunar surface at those concentrations.
Methinks people forget how ridiculously heavy water is.
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So, what you're saying is that we need to get Charlie Mops up there ASAP?
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Well, if you take their high estimate which is 3 orders of magnitude greater, you'd have 1000 small lakes, but this seems like a gold prospector taking one pan in the USA (9m vs. 14m square miles for moon) seeing some flecks, and declaring the entire country is covered in gold.
This has long been suspected. (Score:2)
Why did Apollo returns not show this? (Score:3)
The Apollo missions brought back a lot more mass, IIRC. Why did this water not show up in them?
A possible answer is that the Apollo samples were hand-picked by humans. Maybe they only selected rocks, not dirt and dust. Maybe such small pieces fell off during selection and inspection. Maybe the Chinese samples were picked up as scooped material.
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Or it might have been assumed to be contamination introduced on Earth.
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I wondered about that too. Seems unlikely a lab would be that sloppy, but it also seems unlikely astronauts would be sloppy choosing and handling samples.
Another answer is that the Chinese water beads are very localized from some comet that hit nearby, and few other locations have such water beads.
It will be interesting to see how this shakes out over the next few years. I wonder if there's any way to detect these water beads from orbiting satellites.
I guess if (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess if any Americans had been to the moon, they might have found this stuff out years ago.
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That's why NASA has decided to really go this time, now that the technology is finally available.
May (Score:2)
May or might, it could be can, but will's not should.