Breakthrough:The Moon may have the same proportion of water as Earth does!

The Moon is full of water! Oceans of water beneath its surface! A group of scientists announced that beneath the surface of the Moon there may be as much water as we have on Earth. This revelation could change everything we know about the Moon — and pave the way for lunar colonies in the next years.

Moon has as much water as Earth does in a proportional sense - not as much total water, but as much water as the Earth would have in its mantle if it were the same size as the Moon.


io9.com...

The researchers used a special ion probe to analyze samples of volcanic glass dug up from the Moon's surface by the crew of Apollo 17. Water and other volatiles from deep beneath the Moon's surface remain preserved in this glass, and allowed the team of scientists to determine likely water levels in the Moon's mantle. Those levels were 100 times higher than what previous studies found

(please watch the video inside the article)

www.sciencemag.org...

Abstract
The Moon has long been thought to be highly depleted in volatiles such as water, and indeed published direct measurements of water in lunar volcanic glasses have never exceeded 50 parts per million (ppm). Here, we report in situ measurements of water in lunar melt inclusions; these samples of primitive lunar magma, by virtue of being trapped within olivine crystals prior to volcanic eruption, did not experience post-eruptive degassing. The lunar melt inclusions contain 615 to 1410 ppm water, and high correlated amounts of fluorine (50 to 78 ppm), sulfur (612 to 877 ppm) and chlorine (1.5 to 3.0 ppm). These volatile contents are very similar to primitive terrestrial mid-ocean ridge basalts and indicate that some parts of the lunar interior contain as much water as Earth's upper mantle

So how will all of this affect our plans for a lunar colony? Obviously, if the mantle is as water-rich as this new research suggests, we'll have a better chance of generating water and oxygen on the Moon for our habitats. Plus, If lunar water is associated with volcanic activity, then that makes NASA's idea to build a lunar colony in one of the Moon's giant magma holes even more attractive.

This is incredible!

And also maybe it has something to do with us evolving on this planet but this is utterly amazing!

Originally posted by Arken
The Moon is full of water!

Both yourself and the article writer at io9.com have misunderstood the results.

The groundwater on earth is, as one website puts it...
the water that lies in the tiny spaces between grains of sand or bits of fractured rock. It's a bit like the effect you'd get if you poured water into a jar of sand or pebbles – the water wouldn't float to the top, but instead would settle in the spaces between grains, filling the spaces between sand or stones.

But the study speaks of the water molecules that exist as (what geologists call) "volatiles" within the rock itself.
Trapped. In very small amounts.
As the study says...
These volatile contents are very similar to primitive terrestrial mid-ocean ridge basalts
So if you really want to see how much water there is on the moon, grab yourself a big rock, preferably basalt, and see how much you can get to drink from it.
Answer: not much.

Yeah well you are supposed to believe grey dust (moon landing footage) is reflective.More like the whole surface is frozen water and ice tundra, hence a white and bluish surface. The temprature out there is extremely low so I don't know how those guys bouncing around up there stayed alive? Maybe bouncing kept them warm ? Still can't work out howcome something as light as that fine dust stays on the surface considering they say there is zero gravity???

It will be good for space exploration if there is a lot of water up there

The temperature on the Moon ranges from daytime highs of about 120°C = 248°F to nighttime lows of about -110°C, -170°F.

The moon's gravitational force is only 17% of the Earth's gravity. For example, a 100 pound (45 kg) person would weigh only 17 pounds (7.6 kg) on the Moon.

The moon has no atmosphere. On the moon, the sky is always appears dark, even on the bright side (because there is no atmosphere).

Of course those above temperatures are for the moon's 'surface' temperatures, and since the moon has no atmosphere the temperatures off of the surface have nothing to radiate so it is hard to determine what 4 feet off of the surface would feel like to exposed skin, exposed skin on the moon would be directly related to the angle of solar rays and length of exposure to solar rays, would grow hot in the sun and very cold with no sun but by no means the same temperature as the moon surface.

The surface temperature of the Moon varies considerably with location and the relative position of the Sun. Unlike geologically active bodies, the Moon no longer has an internal heat source, so heating comes almost entirely from the Sun (at night the lunar surface is warmed slightly by Earth).
With no atmosphere and a surface made up almost entirely of rocky materials with low thermal conductivity and relatively low heat capacity, during the lunar day the surface temperature quickly reaches equilibrium with incoming solar radiation.

For a surface with the sun directly overhead, for example a horizontal region near the equator at lunar noon, without all of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation complexities, the maximum surface temperature on the moon can reach 120ºC, or 248ºF. When the sun's not directly overhead whether you are at the equator during lunar morning or evening, near the poles, or looking at a rock face sharply angled to the horizontal, the surface temperature will be lowered because the same solar energy is spread over a larger area.

For an angle of 30 degrees, (maximum temperature for a horizontal surface at latitude 30 degrees N or S, or equatorial temperature at roughly plus or minus two Earth days from lunar "noon"), expected temperature is about 107º C, 224.6ºF. At 60 degrees, the temperature is still 58ºC, 136.4ºF. At 75 degrees we reach about 8ºC, 46.4ºF. At 85 degrees the equilibrated temperature drops to -59ºC, -74ºF. During the night the surface temperature drops further as the rocks radiate away the energy they've absorbed during the day time, with regions near the lunar equator dropping to about -150ºC, -238ºF.

At the lunar poles there are believed to be regions which never receive direct sunlight. If they don't receive significant warming from higher elevation surfaces that are in direct sunlight, they would be equilibrated only with the thermal background radiation of deep space at -270ºC, -454ºF.

Last October 9, a small NASA rocket slammed into a 60-mile-wide crater named Cabeus, a permanently shadowed dent very close to the lunar south pole. The extreme heat of the collision caused grains of water ice and other substances that had been frozen for billions of years to vaporize. A larger spacecraft followed a few minutes later to sniff the vapor cloud and send measurements back to Earth before itself crashing into the lunar surface. Preliminary findings from the mission—called LCROSS, for Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite—show that at the impact site water may account for about 5 percent of the lunar crater’s soil by weight, says Anthony Colaprete, principal investigator. That is as dry as the driest deserts on Earth, yet still far wetter than most scientists expected.

explains the snail @ AS11-40-5958HR

Due to the direct cosmic bombardment of the moon there is a lot of helium 3 mixed with that water,
www.wired.com...

Helium 3 is rare on earth. Helium-3 is a byproduct of tritium decay, and tritium can be produced through neutron bombardment of lithium, boron, or nitrogen targets. Current supplies of helium-3 come, in part, from the dismantling of nuclear weapons where it accumulates;

Helium 3 can be used as fuel in a helium-3 fusion reactor.
www.freewebs.com...
peakoildebunked.blogspot.com...

This helium 3 could also be used to power long range space exploration to the outer plants.
and space habitats

Not to sound like someone who wants evidence, but I think you should rethink this. There is a Web Site that gives it's share of theories of what the moon is, for an example, a big A mothership!