Moon Water Evidence

July 10th, 2008

A Brown University-led research team has for the first time discovered evidence of water that came from deep within the Moon, a revelation that strongly suggests water has been a part of the Moon since its early existence – and perhaps ever since it was created by a cataclysmic collision between the early Earth and a Mars-sized object about 4.5 billion years ago.

Honestly, I have very little understanding of what implications this discovery even has. They suggest that it gives some sort of proof that the Earth had water before the Moon broke away from it?

“What is important for me is it’s telling me something about the origin of the Moon and the Earth and the presence of water at very early times,” said Saal, the paper’s lead author.

“This suggests the very intriguing possibility that the Moon’s interior might have contained just as much water as the Earth’s depleted upper mantle,” Hauri said.

Hauri used secondary mass ion spectrometry, a technique that measures the elemental composition of solid materials, to detect the minute amounts of water in the samples.

“We developed a way to detect as little as five parts per million of water,” Hauri, from the Carnegie Institution for Science developed the analytical technique used to identify water and the other volatiles, said. “We were really surprised to find a whole lot more in these tiny glass beads, up to 46 parts per million.”

While this makes little sense to me what the implications are, I still find it relatively interesting that a place this close to us has the possibility of containing water, while we have been trying to find it all over the solar system for decades. We are on Mars right now looking for water, which is considered necessary for life. We are considering sending satellites out to moons of planets like Saturn and Jupiter, yet we haven’t even discovered that there is probably water on our own? Makes about as much sense as using some movers New York style to get your tractor to your new farm. Just when we think they actually have some real discoveries about life out there we find that they are still light years away.