Showing posts with label "Evidence of water on Moon". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "Evidence of water on Moon". Show all posts

Tuesday 25 July 2017

Moon's mantle may contain lots of water, satellite data shows

New Delhi: New satellite data reveals evidence of water on the lunar surface, contradicting the long belief that the Moon is a dry, inhospitable orb.

The new study finds that numerous volcanic deposits distributed across the surface of the Moon contain unusually high amounts of trapped water compared with surrounding terrains.

But that held assumption began to overturn in 2008 when scientists first traced amounts of water in some of the volcanic glass beads brought back to Earth from the Apollo 15 and 17 missions.

In 2011, study of tiny crystalline formations within those beads revealed that they actually contain similar amounts of water as some basalts on Earth. That suggests that the Moon`s mantle - parts of it, at least - contain as much water as Earth`s.

For the study, scientists used orbital spectrometers to measure the light that bounces off a planetary surface.

"By looking at which wavelengths of light are absorbed or reflected by the surface, scientists can get an idea of which minerals and other compounds are present," the researchers noted.

The research has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Source:-Zeenews
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