Discovery of a water reserve of 250 thousand tons in the least expected place – Enséñame de Ciencia

The Moon, the natural satellite of our planet Earth, which has inspired poets and painters in their artistic creations and aroused great interest and curiosity among scientists in their great research and discoveries.

It is believed that the moon is the result of a space body the size of Mars that collided with the Earth more than 4.5 billion years ago and that as a result of the collision it was thrown into space with a lot of materials that came with time. Together to form our lunar satellite.

There is no doubt that the arrival of Neil Armstrong aboard Apollo 11, the first human to walk on the moon in 1969, was a major step for science, as after his arrival large groups of researchers did not stop to explore and solve the problem. The great unknown from our satellite.

Although there are more than 384 thousand kilometers of distance separating the Earth from the Moon, this has not been an obstacle to research and generating new knowledge, as the best strategies for exploring it and how to expect it are always being researched. Every new discovery does not cease to surprise us.

One of the most researched topics is the formation of the moon and the presence of water inside it.

Recently, a group of researchers from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences published an article condition In the magazine Natural earth sciencesThey reported finding more than 250,000 tons of water.

This is not the first time that the discovery of water or ice has been reported on the surface of the Moon, but what is striking is the large amount of water that has been reported, and although this indicates that the largest composition of the Moon is water, it is still much smaller than it is. She is down to earth.

It is currently known that water on the Moon has diurnal cycles and is lost to space, which raises the hypothesis that there is a larger reserve of water deep in the lunar soil, making it possible to retain, release and replenish water on the Moon's surface.

Studies have previously reported where doubts began about the existence of hidden water deposits, because water was found in fine mineral grains, resulting from collisions, volcanic rocks, and refractory glass beads.

The Chinese research group, led by Professor Sen Hu, discovered that the glass beads hitting the lunar soil contain some water.

This was proposed by doctoral student Huikun He, who argued that glass beads are an amorphous, universal component of lunar soil and are an ideal candidate for studying an unknown lunar water layer or reservoir.

The student took on the task of determining the properties of glass beads recovered by the Chang'e5 (CE5) mission. On these glass beads, he systematically studied rocks, major element composition, water abundance, and hydrogen isotope composition. This aims to track and characterize water deposits that have not yet been found on the surface of the moon.

It has been shown that these glass beads act like a sponge and contain small amounts of water. From this research, the expert team concluded that the amount of water contributed by the collision of glass beads with lunar soil ranges from 300,000 to 270,000 tons of water on the moon in the form of ice.

“These results indicate that crystals on the surface of the Moon and airless bodies in the Solar System are capable of storing water derived from the solar wind and releasing it into space,” Professor Sen Hu stated.

this Finding It is such an entity that water from the moon's surface can be used for future missions.