MOON'S INTERIOR COULD CONTAIN A LOT MORE WATER THAN EXPECTED

 Scientists at Brown University have revealed new evidence suggesting that the Moon contains a substantial amount of water underneath its surface. Through satellite data, the researchers studied lunar pyroclastic deposits, layers of rock that formed from large volcanic eruptions, to reach this conclusion.
 "We observe the water in deposits that are at the surface today, but these deposits are the result of magma that originally comes from deep within the lunar interior," said Ralph Milliken, a geologist at Brown University. "Therefore, because the products of the magma have water, the deep interior of the moon must also contain water."
 The scientists utilized data from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 probe to isolate reflected sunlight from the thermal energy emitted by the Moon's surface.
 "Different minerals and compounds will absorb and reflect light in different ways, so in our case we looked at wavelengths where [the molecules] H2O and OH absorb light," Milliken said. "We found that there were larger absorptions, or less reflected sunlight, at these wavelengths for pyroclastic deposits, which indicates they contain OH or H2O."
Read more about this fascinating story at: https://www.space.com/37596-moon-interior-could-have-water.html
Photo: Arijit_Roy via Flickr