Although it appears dry and devoid of moisture to the naked eye, the Moon actually contains a significant amount of water beneath its crust, as numerous studies have shown. For a year, Many maps have been developed.especially for the task Artemis Thirdly From NASA, which is targeting a landing area on the moon that is likely to be rich in water, in the form of ice or molecules. This water could be used to sustain astronauts and to produce fuel for rockets.
According to a new analysis of mineral maps, water and hydroxyl, a molecule made up of hydrogen and oxygen, are not limited to the lunar poles, but are distributed across many regions of the moon.
Image-based study from 2008-2009
“Future astronauts could find water even near the equator by exploiting these water-rich regions.” Roger Clark saysa planetary scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. Previously, it was thought that only the polar region, especially the permanently shadowed craters, contained significant amounts of water.
The researchers relied on data collected by the Moon MineralogyMapper (M3) instrument on board the Chandrayaan-1 probe, which orbited the moon in 2008 and 2009. The instrument captured infrared light reflected from the moon's surface, looking for spectral signatures consistent with the presence of water and hydroxyl.
Image credit: NASA/ISRO/M3 Team/PSI/R. Clark Top: Black-and-white image of the Moon based on data from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper. Bottom: Water map of the Moon. Different colors represent different forms of water absorption and correspond to rock type. Darker colors tend to have shallow, tick-shaped absorptions. Blue colors represent broader, deeper absorptions characteristic of feldspars with increasing water absorption strength toward the poles.
Even the sunniest parts of the moon hide traces of water.
The team found that these molecules are present at all latitudes, although they are less abundant in the lunar seas. However, water-rich rocks, ejected during meteorite or asteroid impacts, can be found everywhere, including in areas directly exposed to the Sun.
Scientists have also noted that water on the Moon's surface forms after craters form, before evaporating under the influence of solar winds over millions of years. However, this process leaves behind hydroxyl, which is formed by solar winds depositing hydrogen on the surface, which then bonds with oxygen.
“By combining all these observations, we get a picture of a moon with complex geology, with a lot of water in its basement and a surface layer of hydroxyl,” Clark explains. Crater formation and volcanic activity play a crucial role in bringing water-rich material to the surface, he adds, as the data they’ve collected confirm.
