Chinese Lunar Probe Finds Water In Moon Samples
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
A Chinese lunar probe found traces of water in samples of the moon's soil, scientists have said, as the country pushes its ambitious space program into high gear.
The Chang'e-5 rover completed its mission in 2020, returning to Earth with rock and soil samples from the moon.
The lunar samples "revealed the presence of trace water", the group of scientists from Chinese universities wrote in the Nature Astronomy journal published Monday.
A NASA infrared detector already confirmed in 2020 the existence of water on the moon, while scientists found traces of water in recent analyses of samples dating from the 1960s and 1970s.
But the Chang'e-5 samples are from a "much higher latitude", providing new clues as to what form water takes on the moon's surface, the Chinese scientists wrote.
The samples suggest that "water molecules can persist in sunlit areas of the moon in the form of hydrated salts", they said.
Reference: Shifeng Jin et al, Evidence of a hydrated mineral enriched in water and ammonium molecules in the Chang'e-5 lunar sample, Nature Astronomy (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-024-02306-8
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