Saturday, July 23, 2011

Moon’s Interior Wet As Earth’s, Rocks Indicate (SPACE.com)

Just when we were starting to get over the shock that parts of the moon’s surface are wetter than the Sahara Desert, a new study reports that the lunar interior is sopping wet, too. (Freedom News)
  • Now, new research has found that the moon’s insides are likely as wet as the Earth’s
  • “The fact that these [samples] have terrestrial levels of water is really a stunner.”
  • But co-author Thomas Weinreich, at the time a freshman at Brown University, spotted some while poring over the Apollo 17 samples.... “A kid a year out of high school found these for us,” Hauri told SPACE.com “That was pretty amazing in and of itself.” 
  • The researchers reported their results today (May 26) in the journal Science.
  • Where did the moon’s surface water come from? (in permanently shadowed craters)
  • Researchers will likely need a sample-return mission to figure out where the surface water actually came from, Hauri said.
Wouldn't it make more sense to go back to the Moon as opposed to going to an asteroid?  Especially since there is water there and possibly plenty of other useful stuff.

I wish I could find a demo of someone baking some water out of lunar samples.  It was eye opening.




Update:

The collision mentioned above is also known as The Big Whack.

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