The artist’s concept of the moon inside the Earth’s magnetic tail, the part of our magnetosphere that extends out of our sun. The moon sweeps within this tail every month to the full moon. Image via E. Masongsong / UCLA / EPSS / NASA / GSFC / SVS / Duluth News Tribune.
By Bob King, also known as AstroBob. Originally published in Duluth News Tribune on February 16, 2021. Reprinted here with permission.
Finding sterile water on the moon is one of the most notable discoveries of the post-Apollo era. Satellite mapping has revealed ice inside craters with permanent shadow at the lunar poles and, more recently, at Clavius, a prominent crater next to the Moon that basks in the sun for two weeks each month. Comets and meteoroids probably delivered water that eventually froze on ice, although water-rich lavas that erupted in the Moon’s distant past may also have contributed.
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The orange ground stumbled upon by Apollo 17 astronauts contained drops of glass sprayed from a volcanic fire source 3.64 billion years ago. Subsequent analyzes found closed water inside some of the accounts. Image via NASA / Duluth News Tribune.
Back on Earth, scientists have found enclosed water inside volcanic vessels and rocks collected by Apollo 15 and 17 astronauts. In 2019, NASA’s LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) mission discovered that the constant flow of micrometeorites (small space rocks) that bombard the moon create a fine temporary atmosphere of water vapor. When particles penetrate at least 8 inches (8 cm) into the surface, the impact shock releases water molecules attached to the minerals in the deepest soil that are not exposed to direct sunlight.
To be clear, the moon is far from wet, but it’s not the dry place we thought it was. By comparison, the driest stretch of the Sahara desert has 100 times more wet things than the moon. To fill the 16-ounce bottle of water, you would have to process about a metric ton of lunar earth.
The current of protons and electrons expelled by the sun called the solar wind affects the Earth (shown here) and the Moon equally. The protons (hydrogen) of the wind combine with the oxygen of the lunar soil to form water. Image via NASA / Duluth News Tribune.
The sun also helps to distill glasses of water from the moon when the protons of the solar wind collide against the lunar surface and bind to the oxygen atoms of the minerals to produce H2O. Protons are basically hydrogen atoms that have lost an electron. They are the “H” of H2O. By the way, the solar wind itself sometimes connects to the Earth’s magnetic field and provides hordes of protons and electrons that cause the northern lights.
In a new study, a team of scientists found that an “earth wind” of ionized atoms blowing from the polar regions can interact with the lunar soil and rocks to form water molecules. H means hydrogen; He for helium, O for oxygen and N2 for nitrogen. The plus sign means that atoms or molecules have lost an electron and are positively charged. Image via NASA / Bob King / Duluth News Tribune.
A study published on February 1, 2021 in Letters from astrophysical journals has found that the Earth can also play a key role in water creation. Similar to the wind of electrified particles from the sun, the Earth has its own wind composed of ionized hydrogen, helium, oxygen and nitrogen. “Ionized” means that atoms have lost an electron and carry a positive charge.
Energized by interactions with the solar wind, some of the atoms and ionized molecules in the planet’s polar atmosphere shoot into space where they are trapped by the Earth’s magnetic field, better known as the magnetosphere.
Most of the time, the moon moves away from the magnetosphere, which moves away from the sun like a rock, but for 3-5 days each month it travels through it around the time of the full moon. The magnetosphere deflects the solar wind, preventing the sun’s protons from forming fresh water on the lunar surface. With the moon cut off from the supply, astronomers assumed that the lunar water formed by the solar bombardment would quickly escape into space and the moon would emerge from its drier temporary magnetic shelter.
This image of the moon is from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, on the Chandrayaan-1 Indian spacecraft. Small amounts of water and hydroxyl (related to water) are shown in blue. Most of the moon’s water is concentrated in the colder polar regions. Image via ISRO / NASA / JPL-Caltech / Brown University / USGS.
But no! Using data from India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, which mapped water from the moon’s polar regions, Chinese researchers made a startling discovery. Water levels remained almost the same every time the moon came out of the magnetosphere. Something had to launch protons at our satellite to keep the water coming. The polar wind from Earth seemed the likely suspect.
Additional evidence came from the Japanese Kaguya lunar orbiter, active in the early 2000s, which detected outbursts of positively charged oxygen atoms on the moon each time it hid in the shadow of the Earth’s magnetic tail. Earth. In addition to hydrogen, oxygen can also contribute to the creation of water on the moon. How amazing to think that the ionic breezes of the Earth can help cover the lunar surface with vital water that can benefit future astronauts.
Summary: Particles transported from the Earth’s poles through our planet’s magnetosphere could interact with lunar rocks to create small amounts of water on the moon.
Source: Earth’s wind as a possible exogenous source of hydration of the lunar surface
Via Duluth News Tribune
