Chinese team finds first trace of lunar water, a big step towards understanding the moon

Chinese scientists have found water molecules in lunar soil for the first time, a discovery that could be key to understanding how the moon evolved and how to exploit its resources.

Samples brought back by American Apollo astronauts decades ago revealed no sign of water and led scientists to conclude that lunar soil must be completely dry, according to NASA.

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China’s Chang’e-6 mission returns to Earth with first samples from the far side of the moon

China’s Chang’e-6 mission returns to Earth with first samples from the far side of the moon

The research – carried out jointly by researchers from the Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and the CAS Institute of Physics and other domestic research institutions – was published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Astronomy on July 16.

The researchers ruled out the possibility that the watery mineral was contaminated by terrestrial sources or rocket exhaust.

But one geochemist said he expected the team to find more evidence in later studies.

“If this watery mineral is present in lunar samples, more than one piece should be found,” said the scientist, who asked not to be identified and was not associated with the study.

The search for water on the Moon has been a decades-long quest for lunar scientists.

When the United States’ Apollo mission first landed humans on the Moon in the 1960s, researchers had the opportunity to directly look for signs of water on the lunar surface.

However, initial analyses of their soil samples were disappointing and led to the prevailing notion of a “dry moon.” The prospect of lunar water was not seriously considered again for decades.

In recent years, the concept of a dry moon has been challenged thanks to technological advances such as microanalysis and remote sensing techniques, according to the Nature Astronomy article.

In 2009, for example, the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 probe detected signs of hydrated minerals in the form of oxygen and hydrogen molecules in sunlit areas of the Moon.

More recently, in 2020, NASA announced the discovery of water on the moon’s sunlit surface based on data from the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, which detected water molecules in Clavius ​​crater, one of the largest craters visible from Earth, in the moon’s southern hemisphere.

But the lack of lunar samples returned from high latitudes and polar regions means that “neither the origin nor the actual chemical form of lunar hydrogen has been determined,” according to the Nature paper.

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China’s Chang’e 5 lunar mission returns to Earth with lunar samples

China’s Chang’e 5 lunar mission returns to Earth with lunar samples

After the Chang’e-5 mission retrieved the first lunar samples in decades from the near side of the Moon in 2020, researchers had a new chance to investigate a number of lunar mysteries — including the presence of water on the Moon — because the samples were much younger than those returned by the Apollo and Soviet Luna missions five decades ago, and from a much higher latitude.