A 2017 study had shown that the Moon's mantle could have water concentrations similar to those of the Earth's mantle. Now data from a NASA probe confirmed the assumption. Good news for future Moon missions!
Confirmed water reservoirs are marked in blue on this satellite picture.Image: picture alliance/dpa/Milliken lab/Brown University
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New NASA data proves: There is frozen ice on the moon. Data from the US space agency's Moon research instrument M3 has revealed three chemical signatures that definitely prove the results of an earlier study based on data from the Indian spacecraft "Chandrayann-1."
According to the original study, there is a similar concentration of water in the Moon's mantle as in the Earth's mantle, which is located below the Earth's crust and could contain as much water as all our oceans combined.
For a long time the moon was considered a very dry celestial body. According to the study published by Ralph Milliken and Shuai Li in the journal "Nature Geoscience" on July 24 2017, the history of the formation of the Moon, which was previously considered probable, cannot be correct.
According to this, the Moon had been separated from the young Earth by a collision with a celestial body about the size of Mars. Such a collision would have generated so much heat that anywater on the Moon would have had to evaporate.
Milliken and Li were able to search large parts of the Moon's surface for water deposits with an elaborate analysis.
Their results showed that water-containing glass spheres of Moon samples from an Apollo mission do not represent any local peculiarities and "that the ubiquitous presence of water in pyroclastic deposits [a mixture of solids and gases that is formed during volcanic activity] is further evidence that the Moon's mantle is an important water reservoir," the authors write in their study.
In 2008, investigations of lunar rock samples from the last Apollo mission had already proven the existence of water in volcanic glass spheres. In 2009, ice was also discovered by a targeted impact of an old rocket stage on the Moon.
But where the moonwater comes from is still unresolved.
"The increasing evidence for water in the Moon suggests that either the water somehow survived or that it was brought along shortly after the collision of asteroids or comets before the Moon solidified completely," Li explained.
The two researchers believe that the water deposits on the Moon could have practical benefits for the exploration of the Earth's satellite. After all, the volcanic samples brought back to Earth by the Apollo missions contain 0.5 per mille of water - and that could potentially be extracted.
"Everything that saves future Moon researchers the need to bring plenty of water from home is a big step forward," said Li.
Meet the planets
The first close-ups of Pluto awed the world this week. A couple of decades ago, photos of Venus or Saturn taken from space had a similar effect on scientists. Join DW on an interplanetary photo safari!
Image: Reuters/NASA/APL/SwRI/Handout
Our solar system
Depending on who you ask, there are eight or nine planets in our solar system - some experts still count Pluto, while the International Astronomical Union (IAU) took away its planetary status in 2006. People were still excited when NASA presented the first high-res images of Pluto this week. Its neighbors all had their portrait taken as early as the 1960s.
Mercury
The spacecraft Mariner 10 left for the planet closest to the Sun in 1973. It took this picture of Mercury's moon-like surface in March 1974. The planet's distance to the Sun varies between 28.5 million miles (46 kilometers) and 43.5 million miles (70 kilometers), because its orbit isn't a perfect circle. Scientists were surprised to discover that Mercury had a small magnetic field.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Nasa
Venus
Mariner 10 took this first close-up of Mercury's direct neighbor on February 5, 1974. The picture was color-enhanced by NASA to bring out Venus' cloudy atmosphere - the planet is perpetually blanketed by a thick veil of clouds rich in carbon dioxide. Mariner 10's journey to Venus was a rocky one: the spacecraft's high-gain antenna developed problems and a mechanical issue caused a large fuel-loss.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Nasa
Earth
The first full-on photo of our planet as seen from outer space was taken by Lunar Orbiter 1 in August 1966. That was three years before a human being had ever set foot on the Moon, which can be seen in the foreground of this picture as a shadow. The now-iconic photo was one of a series of pictures taken in preparation for the Apollo missions that would eventually put a human on the Moon.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Nasa/Loirp
Mars
This close-up of Earth's neighbor is the first picture ever taken of another planet by a spacecraft. Mariner 4 snapped it on July 15, 1965. Scientists who had expected to see lakes, valleys and mountains were disappointed - instead of an Earth-like planet, they were treated to craters similar to those on the Moon. The New York Times wrote: "Mars is probably a dead planet."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Jupiter
Spacecraft Pioneer 10 took the planet's first close-up from roughly 80,780 miles (130,000 kilometers) away on November 19, 1973. Jupiter is our solar system's largest planet. At its equator, Jupiter's diameter is a whopping 88,846 miles (142,984 kilometers). Its mass is two-and-a-half times larger than the masses of all other planets combined.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/UPI
Saturn
This first shot of the ringed planet was taken on Pioneer 10's follow-up mission, Pioneer 11, on August 31, 1979. It was a perilous adventure: as the spacecraft flew through Saturn's outer rings, it almost crashed into one of two new moons it discovered. Visible at the upper left-hand corner in this photo is Saturn's moon Titan.
One of the first glimpses scientists got of Uranus was of its rings. Voyager 2 took this shot of them in 1986. Scientists had to remote-fix the spacecraft's camera for it to be able to photograph the planet with the coldest atmosphere in our solar system (as low as -366 degrees Fahrenheit or -221 degrees Celsius). The device had malfunctioned while Voyager 2 was passing Saturn.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Consolidated
Neptune
Voyager 2 also took the first picture of Neptune in August 1989. The planet has four cloud features that scientists know about. For those who don't count Pluto, Neptune is the planet in our solar system that's furthest away from the sun: at an average of 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers), that distance is 30 times greater than the one between the Sun and Earth.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Pluto
The fact that Pluto is not officially a planet anymore didn't detract from the excitement scientists and lay-people all over the world experienced when NASA released this first close-up of the copper-colored (dwarf-) planet taken by New Horizons on July 13, 2015. The spacecraft traveled 3 billion miles (4.88 billion kilometers) to the solar system's farthest reaches for this shot.