Archive for July 1, 2016

Most of the water in the moon came from ancient asteroids

For several years now, we’ve known that the Moon is not as dry as was assumed for decades, in fact our satellite is harboring a good amount of water. Now a team based at the Open University in the UK is painting a more detailed picture of exactly how that water was transported to the Moon and trapped on what seems like an outwardly arid rock.

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The primordial Moon hosted magma oceans

Initial hypotheses assumed that comets were the most likely delivery source for the water found in the interior of the Moon and even near the surface of its soils, but scientists using data from recent unmanned lunar missions like the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Deep Impact more recently established that water-rich asteroids may have been responsible for most of the water in the Moon. Read more