Studies made on some of the 381.7 kg of rocks and other materials gathered during the Apollo missions (much of which is currently stored at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston) proved there is some amount of water on the moon but there was no knowledge of how much there was and how to extract it.
In 1994, the SDI-NASA Clementine spacecraft orbited the Moon and mapped its surface. In one experiment, Clementine beamed radio signals into shadowed craters near the Moon’s south pole. The reflections, received by antennas on Earth, seemed to come from icy material.
In 1998, NASA sent another spacecraft, Lunar Prospector, to check. Using a device called a neutron spectrometer, Lunar Prospector scanned the Moon’s surface for hydrogen-rich minerals. Once again, polar craters yielded an intriguing signal: neutron ratios indicated hydrogen. Could it be the “H” in H2O? Many researchers think so.
But recently, due to a progress in the water detection technology, the analysis of volcanic beads brought back from the moon have shown significant traces of water.
“This really appears to have changed the rules of the game. The assumption has been that the moon is dry,” said Robin Canup, astrophysicist and director of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, who did not participate in the study.
Scientist believe that the Moon was formed when a Mars-sized planet (called “Theia”) collided with Earth 4.5 billion years ago blasting sufficient material into orbit around the proto-Earth to form the Moon. But this theory also suggests that all the water all the Moon should of been blasted into space and vaporized, thus making the Moon a dry satellite.
The research team states that the glass beads analyzed are most likely drops of molten lava from the inner structure of the moon, not from the supposed impact that created the moon. In addition to this, it’s not likely that the moon was able either to retain water or to gather it from meteorites during the first 100 million years of it’s existence, considering the fact that the energy created when Earth collided with Theia should have put the Moon into a molten state. Evaporated water from the Moon would of left the atmosphere due to it’s low gravitation.
In 2008, NASA plans to send a new spacecraft to the Moon: the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), bristling with advanced sensors that can sense water in at least four different ways. Scientists are hopeful that LRO can decide the question of Moon water once and for all. This new lunar expedition could settle the future of lunar expedition as a science base on the moon would rely heavy on watter obtained on-site.
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