The presence of water on the moon is no news. NASA's lunar orbiters found evidence of the life-giving liquid inside the moon's permanently shadowed polar craters already in the 1990s. In the 2000s, a reanalysis of samples from the manned Apollo missions of the late 1960s and 1970s detected hydrogen in the lunar soil. And the recently retired infrared telescope SOFIA confirmed in 2020 that water is present on the moon, even outside the dark craters. The origin and behavior of this lunar water is, however, still somewhat unclear.
However, the glass beads found in the 61.1 ounces (1,731 grams) of lunar regolith brought to our planet by Chang’e-5 in December 2020 might provide the missing piece in this puzzle.
The new study suggests that the glass beads could serve as a hidden reservoir, from which water is readily released into the dried-out surface soil during the cool and dark lunar night.
The new study found much more water locked in these beads than previously thought. On top of that, the analysis suggested that a substantial quantity of the liquid accumulates inside those beads within a few years and can be released even more rapidly.
The researchers estimate that up to 600 trillion pounds (270 trillion kilograms) of water may be trapped in the top 40 feet (12 meters) of the lunar surface. The chemical composition of the water in the beads is consistent with the type produced from the interaction with solar wind, as it contains isotopes of hydrogen present in the sun.
Source: www.space.com
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