Through confirmation via experiments conducted on Earth, Chinese scientists have reported signs indicating the presence of water in rocks collected by the Chang’e 5 lander on the Moon.
Chang’e 5 spacecraft collecting samples on the Moon.
They shared their findings in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications.
The Chang’e 5 lander landed on the Moon in December 2020, collecting approximately 1.7 kg of lunar rocks and soil, known as regolith.
The spacecraft also utilized onboard instruments to measure the chemical composition of the samples it collected.
This data allowed the Chinese researchers to suggest that water molecules may be present at around 120 parts per million (ppm) in some types of lunar rocks and 180 ppm in other types.
Currently, a research team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences has confirmed the presence of water in the samples by studying the items that Chang’e 5 brought back to Earth.
The soil analyzed by the scientists turned out to be relatively dry, with a water content of only 28.5 ppm. However, they also discovered that the mineral apatite among the samples contained H2O at 179 ppm, consistent with previous forecasts.
Telescopic and satellite observations have long led scientists to suspect that water exists on the Moon, in the form of hydroxyl or H2O in rocks.
It is hoped that astronauts residing on Earth’s satellite in the future may be able to extract molecular oxygen and hydrogen from the environment to create water and pure oxygen for themselves.
