Water on the Moon?

Water is composed of one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms. It can also be formed when hydrogen combines with a hydroxyl molecule (OHˉ). The different spacecrafts (Cassini, Deep Impact, and Chandrayaan) saw the sign of water in the moon. Hydroxyl molecules and water love to eat the 2.8 micron light, so eventually they absorb it. Then as the astronauts take a spectrum of the moon they saw a big dip at that wavelength. The spacecraft showed that there is 1% water in the lunar surface by weight. This water may come from comets that hit the moon and deposit water, and over the past billions of years may have also dumped as ten trillion liters of water in the surface. The water amount detected changed over the month-lunar day. There was more in the morning and less at noon a week later. It clearly shows that the Sun is involved in this process. Scientists say that the solar wind is thick with hydrogen may slam into the lunar rock freezes oxygen, which then combines to form H₂O. This shows that the Sun affects the water levels. An amazingly finding is that the water levels appear to be only in the surface.

This article is an example of hypothesis based science, because they did many experiments on the moon. They send the three spacecrafts Cassini, Deep Impact, and Chandrayaan to see if there was water. Cassini and Deep Impact swung by the Moon and Chandrayaan orbited the Moon. This article is important because maybe the Moon may be hiding what scientists are finding the most, and the Moon is the nearest astronomical object in the sky, and there are many researches involved in the Moon.

author : Phil Plait

title of article: Water on the Moon...? Yup. It's real

journal: DISCOVERY MAGAZINE

pages of article: 1