For decades, scientist believed that the Moon was bone dry after a research was conducted on collected rock samples from the Moon's surface. However, with the use of the modern technology, scientists have now proven that there were pools of water on the Moon.
According to Phys.org, a new study was released on Wednesday, published in "Nature Communications." The research revealed that the Moon is harboring a considerable amount of water. The team of researchers from Open University in the United Kingdom detailed how the water ended up on the Moon.
The Moon was formed 4.5 billion years ago following a crash impact of two planets, Earth and a planet with a size similar to planet Mars. The celestial body in its early years had an ocean of magma. The researchers of the study led by Jessica Barnes believes that asteroids, called carbonaceous chondrites, containing water crashed into the Moon.
A crust developed on the Moon, enclosing the water in the oceans of magma, BBC reported. Then, the magma was thrown out through volcanic eruptions, returned to the Moon's surface and hardened. These volcanic rocks were the samples collected by the astronauts from the Apollo Mission.
Comets' Contribution
The first author of the research, Dr. Jessica Barnes of Open University stated, "It's not pools of water, it's not lakes of water, it's not frozen ice. When we're talking about interior - or magmatic - water, we're talking about water that is locked up in minerals. They found that the molecular signature of the water found on the moon matches that of "carbonaceous chondrite" meteorites.
In addition, teams of researchers from the U.S. and France believe that comets also contributed a small percent of the Moon's water. They suggested comets may have contributed only a small portion of the Moon's water, and mostly came from watery asteroid rocks.
