The
moon is seen in its waxing gibbous stage as birds fly over the parking
lot at MetLife Stadium following an international friendly soccer match
between Mexico and Ivory Coast, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2013, in East
Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
NASA-funded lunar research has yielded evidence of water locked in mineral grains on the surface of the moon from an unknown source deep beneath the surface.
Using data from NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument aboard the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists remotely detected magmatic water, or water that originates from deep within the moon's interior, on the surface of the moon.
The findings, published Aug. 25 in Nature Geoscience, represent the first detection of this form of water from lunar orbit. Earlier studies had shown the existence of magmatic water in lunar samples returned during the Apollo program.
M3 imaged the lunar impact crater Bullialdus, which lies near the lunar equator. Scientists were interested in studying this area because they could better quantify the amount of water inside the rocks due to the crater's location and the type of rocks it held. The central peak of the crater is made up of a type of rock that forms deep within the lunar crust and mantle when magma is trapped underground.
More - Link >>> http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/august/nasa-funded-scientists-detect-water-on-moons-surface-that-hints-at-water-below/#.UhzZTUoZSO4
Source: NASA.
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