Scientist Discovered Source of Water on Moon

Scientists in third week of October have discovered that the most likely source of water on Moon is the constant stream of charged particles from the Sun known as the solar wind.

The findings came by researchers from the University of Michigan who imply that ice inside permanently shadowed polar craters on the Moon, sometimes called cold traps, could contain hydrogen atoms ultimately derived from the solar wind.

Also, The Theoretical models of lunar water stability dating to the late 1970s suggest that hydrogen ions (protons) from the solar wind can combine with oxygen on the Moon’s surface to form water and related compounds called hydroxyls, which consist of one atom of hydrogen and one of oxygen and are known as OH.

The researchers have found that the 'water' component, the hydroxyl, in the lunar regolith is mostly from solar wind implantation of protons, which locally combined with oxygen to form hydroxyls that moved into the interior of glasses by impact melting.

With this research it is also clear that water likely exists on Mercury and on asteroids such as Vesta or Eros further within our solar system.

The study findings are published in the journal 'Nature Geoscience'.