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Report Puts Water In Moon's Past

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Los Angeles Times

Published: July 10, 2008

A new analysis of volcanic glass recovered from the moon decades ago found the rocks contain traces of the constituents of water, challenging a long-held notion that the moon is perfectly dry.

Using a technique not available when Apollo astronauts collected the rocks in the early 1970s, scientists were able to detect tell-tale signs of water trapped inside the pebble-like glass. Their discovery suggests water was present deep within the moon between 3.3 billion and 3.6 billion years ago, when the pebbles were formed during violent lunar eruptions.

The report, published in the journal Nature, may cause scientists to rethink theories on how the moon was formed.

"The water that these guys have discovered is a scientific gold mine for us to figure out the history of ... the moon," said Jim Garvin, chief scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, who was not involved in the research.

"Up until our study there was really no evidence for indigenous water on the moon," said Erik Hauri, a staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science and an author on the paper.

Ice may have been deposited on the moon by external sources such as comets, Hauri said.

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