On July 24th 2017, scientists posted a paper in the Journal Nature, that reported that there is evidence of water within the Moon's interior. A team of researchers from Brown University used satellite data retrieved from India's Moon Mineralogy Mapper on board its orbiting Chandrayaan-1 probe, to make their analysis. Measuring reflected sunlight at visible and near visible wavelengths, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper mapped large pryoclastic deposits on the moon's surface.
Pyroclastic deposits are the result of volcanic activity. In 2008, moon rocks from the Apollo missions were examined and determined to be of volcanic origin. These rocks contained glass beads which held traces of water locked inside. Ralph Milliken of Brown University's Environmental and Planetary Sciences Department, and lead researcher, says that at that time no one was certain whether that finding meant that there was an abundance of water beneath the Moon's surface.
However, Milliken went on to say that, "By looking at the orbital data, we can examine the large pyroclastic deposits on the moon that were never sampled by the Apollo or Luna missions. The fact that nearly all of them exhibit signatures of water suggests that the Apollo samples are not anomalous, so it may be that the bulk interior of the moon is wet."
No comments:
Post a Comment