Magazine nature geoscience published this Monday a study carried out by scientists from the Chinese National Academy of Sciences (CAS)in collaboration with European researchers, in which they analyzed samples from the Moon brought to the Land by means of the Chinese probe Chang’e 5 and that revealed the key to origin of water in our satelite natural.
These samples contained impact glasseswhich are grains of different colors probably formed by the high temperatures of the meteorite collision, and those that when analyzed contained small amounts of water from 2,000 parts per millionor of some 2,000 grams for each ton of soil.
senhuof the ANC planetary physics laboratoryexplained that “on the Moon, meteorite impacts are very frequent and occur throughout the satellite, with which the glasses are distributed throughout its geography, from the equator to the polar regions”, and in terms of the presence it may be in its variant molecularwith two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen, or in hydroxylwith one hydrogen atom and one oxygen atom.
With all the study of the samples, the team of researchers estimated that the presence of water on the moon could be about 270,000 million tonswhich is unprecedented compared to previous estimates, such as that of the Indian probe Chandrayaanwho estimated that there were some 600 million tons at the north pole of the satellite.
Earlier samples such as those taken by the american apollo and the missions soviet are some 1,000 years older than those recently collected by the Chinese, and in these latest analyzes it was revealed that these crystals have formed during the last 2,000 millions of years with production peaks caused by meteorite strikes, including the one from ago 68 million years that swept away the dinosaurs.
The water inside the glasses was generated by the Sun
The water inside the glasses was generated by the Sun
huh also explains that the water contained in the lunar crystals was generated by the Sunsince the atoms of hydrogen in the samples indicates that the bombardment of charged particles arriving from the Sun, called wind solar and containing hydrogen atoms with burden positivepenetrates the glasses to combine with the oxygen already present.
Once the sufficient temperature is reached by solar radiation, crystals can release their charge of waterThat is why they explain that the water cycle on the Moon is the result of this.
One of the main purposes that this study seeks to achieve is that in the future it will be possible to have a alternative source of water supply and they can be done lunar soil extraction missions to extract elementHowever, the amount inside the glasses is very small, so a lot of lunar soil would have to be processed.
It may interest you: What do we know about the giant hole in the Sun that NASA discovered?
The Chang’e probe reached the Moon almost two years ago
The Chang’e probe reached the Moon almost two years ago
It was two years ago when China took its first big step to become a space power, by send Chang’e 5 probe to Oceanus Procellarumthe ocean of storms, a huge dark spot on the Moon visible to the naked eye from the Land.
The moon landing was near Mount Rümkerand in which samples were taken, packaged and sent to the orbital module that flew over the Moon to be returned to Land in just one lunar day, which is equivalent to about 14 Earth days.
James Carpenter, head of planetary sciences at the European Space Agency (ESA)mentioned that the case of the old continent, they will send a mission called prospect in 2026in which the probe will drill into the lunar soil, collect samples and heat them up to 100 degrees to study the volatile compounds present, including water vapor, he explains to this newspaper.
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