Thursday, June 02, 2011

NASA Study Finds Even More Water on the Moon (100 Times More!)

Moon
It wasn't long ago that scientists were saying the Earth's moon may have more water than the Great Lakes. Now comes another study, also funded like the one last, by NASA, that says the moon may have 100 times as much water as previously thought. Moon water?! It's contained in ... wait for it ... lunar magma.

NASA officials say the latest data comes from newly discovered lunar melt inclusions found in high-titanium "orange glass soil" of volcanic origin collected during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. What took so long?

The long-time-coming results were achievable due to a state-of-the-art ion microprobe instrument, the space agency says. Specifically, the NanoSIMS 50L ion microprobe. And speaking of long, the inclusions were formed during moon eruptions about 3.7 billion (with a b) years ago.

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