Lunar samples show that parts of the moon's interior are as wet as Earth's, new research shows Whi

As Schmitt, a Harvard-trained geologist, suspected, the orange soil turned out to be an important find – tiny beads of volcanic glass belched to the moon's surface during a violent eruption more than 3 billion years ago.

Trapped inside the globules like a bug sealed in amber are bits of formerly molten rock from deep inside the moon. Using an ultra-sensitive $3 million probe that didn't exist during the Apollo era, the scientists plumbed the magma and found that it holds as much water as rocks from Earth's interior.

The water is chemically dissolved in rocks, not pooled or flowing like a river, so it couldn't easily be tapped by thirsty future lunar crews.

www.cleveland.com...

Fairly interesting
I find it odd though that after so many years we still don't have that much information regarding the Moon
It seems almost unlikely

But in any case, the moon is much wetter, at least in that area, than we had previously thought.
Same as earth I guess, some places on earth experience an almost permanent drought so it's very much like earth.

It's unfortunate that Obama plans on scrapping NASA
www.nationaljournal.com...

Oh well...!

I'm a little surprised nobody has commented on this thread yet. Let me offer a short tidbit of information until it provokes a longer answer.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the known Universe; helium is second. However, after this, the rank of abundance does not continue to correspond to the atomic number; oxygen has abundance rank 3, but atomic number 8. All others are substantially less common.

I too am surprised at the lack of comments on this. Quite an intriguing find. Although not so surprising. Seems like I've read somewhere that this has been suspected for quite some time. Good find OP.

How goes this estimate mix with the popular explanation that the Moon first was a massive ring of small particulate debris from an impact, and that it was from Earth sourced materials, but altered by high energy, temps, and solar exposure early in the Earth's evolution?
General dust obscuration, or, a series of early rings without massive impact alteration?

reply to post by ModernAcademia
All this does is beg the question: Why haven't we gone back to the moon in the last forty years?

Was hoping someone had posted this.
Thanks OP. S+F.
I think an interesting part of the find is that it poses some questions about how the moon was formed. If the Moon was formed by an object colliding with the Earth, then any water in the stuff that eventually turned into the Moon would be burned off by the heat of the collision. They say there is too much water on the Moon for it all to have got there by meteors or asteroids.
So, how did it all get there?
Was the Moon formed differently then is theorised or (as the article states) are they missing some of the physics involved with how the Moon was formed? www.sciencemag.org...

Cheers

Wow it only took them 39 years to find this out?
That guy Schmitt is one interesting scientist tho.
I'd really like to meet this former astros.

Originally posted by 1questioner
reply to post by ModernAcademia
All this does is beg the question: Why haven't we gone back to the moon in the last forty years?

 

Playing devils advocate here : Maybe the question is meaningless if we never went in the first place

Should have said:

"....that parts of the moon's interior are as wet as women's"

Oh, well, ... we don't even fully know our mother Earth yet. We yet discover new stuff on Earth, and are yet to discover even more, especially deep in the oceans. I mean, we haven't even been as deep in the oceans as we have been deep in the space... (Voyager)

Originally posted by 1questioner
reply to post by ModernAcademia
All this does is beg the question: Why haven't we gone back to the moon in the last forty years?

 

Maybe because the ones already there didn't want us there, maybe it's a waste of resources...hell, maybe they already teleport there lol

Here is a good little series on the self-contradictary and flip flopping of water on the moon


Sometimes water is there ......

Sometimes not ...

reply to post by marscloseup


I've never believed that, that's a borderline orthodox religious thought process as far as im' concerned.

Science is supposed to believe that nothing just happens, yet they wish us to believe just that as far as the Big Bang Theory and the creation of the moon are concerned... It just happened

I don't think so

But why haven't we gone back to the moon is VERY suspicious yes of course. Or maybe we have gone back, many many times just secretly.
It's a great spot to install many spy satellites

also look at this, an article from 1969
Interesting...

news.google.com...,3012109&dq=moon&hl=en