[meteorite-list] NASA-Funded Scientists Detect Water on Moon's Surface that Hints at Water Below

[Ron Baalke]

August 27, 2013

Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov 

Rachel Hoover
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
650-604-4789
rachel.hoover at nasa.gov 

Paulette Campbell
Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.
240-228-6792
paulette.campbell at jhuapl.edu 
     
RELEASE 13-267
     
NASA-Funded Scientists Detect Water on Moon's Surface that Hints at Water Below

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.

"This rock, which normally resides deep beneath the surface, was excavated  
from the lunar depths by the impact that formed Bullialdus crater," said  
Rachel Klima, a planetary geologist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied  
Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md.

"Compared to its surroundings, we found that the central portion of this  
crater contains a significant amount of hydroxyl - a molecule consisting of  
one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom -- which is evidence that the rocks in  
this crater contain water that originated beneath the lunar surface," Klima  
said.

In 2009, M3 provided the first mineralogical map of the lunar surface and  
discovered water molecules in the polar regions of the moon. This water is  
thought to be a thin layer formed from solar wind hitting the moon's surface.  
Bullialdus crater is in a region with an unfavorable environment for solar  
wind to produce significant amounts of water on the surface.

"NASA missions like Lunar Prospector and the Lunar Crater Observation and  
Sensing Satellite and instruments like M3 have gathered crucial data that  
fundamentally changed our understanding of whether water exists on the  
surface of the moon," said S. Pete Worden, center director at NASA's Ames  
Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Similarly, we hope that upcoming  
NASA missions such as the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or  
LADEE, will change our understanding of the lunar sky."

The detection of internal water from orbit means scientists can begin to test  
some of the findings from sample studies in a broader context, including in  
regions that are far from where the Apollo sites are clustered on the near  
side of the moon. For many years, researchers believed that the rocks from  
the moon were bone-dry and any water detected in the Apollo samples had to be  
contamination from Earth.

"Now that we have detected water that is likely from the interior of the  
moon, we can start to compare this water with other characteristics of the  
lunar surface," said Klima. "This internal magmatic water also provides clues  
about the moon's volcanic processes and internal composition, which helps us  
address questions about how the moon formed, and how magmatic processes  
changed as it cooled."

APL is a not-for-profit division of Johns Hopkins University. Joshua Cahill  
and David Lawrence of APL and Justin Hagerty of the U.S. Geological Survey's  
Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Ariz., co-authored the paper.  
NASA's Lunar Advanced Science and Engineering Program, the NASA Lunar Science  
Institute (NLSI) at Ames and the NASA Planetary Mission Data Analysis Program  
supported the research. NLSI is a virtual organization jointly funded by  
NASA's Science Mission Directorate and NASA's Human Exploration and  
Operations Mission Directorate in Washington, to enable collaborative,  
interdisciplinary research in support of NASA lunar science programs.

For more information about NASA programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov 

-end-