First Evidence That Earth’s Magnetosphere Can Create Water on the Moon’s Surface
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:
First Evidence That Earth's Magnetosphere Can Create Water on the Moon's Surface:
Water is far more prevalent in space than astronomers first thought, from the surface of Mars to Jupiter's moons and Saturn's rings, comets, asteroids and Pluto; it has even been detected in clouds far beyond our solar system. It was previously assumed that water was incorporated into these objects during the formation of the solar system, but there is growing evidence that water in space is far more dynamic. Though the solar wind is a likely source for lunar surface water, computer models predict that up to half of it should evaporate and disappear at high-latitude regions during the approximately three days of the full moon when it passes within Earth's magnetosphere.
Surprisingly, the latest analysis of surface hydroxyl/water surface maps by the Chandrayaan-1 satellite's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) showed that lunar surface water does not disappear during this magnetosphere shielding period. Earth's magnetic field was thought to block the solar wind from reaching the moon so that water could not be regenerated faster than it was lost, but the researchers found this was not the case.
[...] Previous Kaguya satellite observations during the full moon detected high concentrations of oxygen isotopes that leaked out of Earth's ozone layer and embedded in lunar soil, along with an abundance of hydrogen ions in our planet's vast extended atmosphere, known as the exosphere. These combined flows of magnetosphere particles are fundamentally different from those in the solar wind. Thus, the latest detection of surface water in this study refutes the shielding hypothesis and instead suggest that the magnetosphere itself creates a "water bridge" that can replenish the moon.
Journal Reference:
H. Z. Wang, J. Zhang, et al. Earth Wind as a Possible Exogenous Source of Lunar Surface Hydration - IOPscience, The Astrophysical Journal Letters (DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/abd559)
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