China’s Chang’e 5 rover discovered microscopic glass beads carrying water in a lunar impact crater. Beads with water concentrations as high as 2,000 parts per million were discovered in samples obtained from a 2020 mission (PPM). Considering the abundance of these glass spheres on the lunar surface, there might be enough water to provide 71 trillion gallons.
Some beads were made millions of years ago when asteroids impacted the Moon, while others were formed by ancient volcanoes. Scientists think the water was formed by a chemical reaction between hydrogen ions generated by the sun and oxygen atoms within the beads, which were brought to the lunar surface by solar winds. The water-filled beads are very small, measuring “tens of micrometres to a few millimetres.” Yet, there are enough on the Moon’s surface to furnish (theoretically) an estimated 270 trillion kilos of water – enough to fill 100 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.
But, scientists have not yet worked out how to gather them, and to extract water, they would need to heat them to roughly 212 degrees Fahrenheit. These may, however, be a resource for future lunar colonies, where astronauts could drink, bathe, cook, clean, and perhaps produce rocket fuel.
Scientists suspect that identical beads may exist on other moons in our Solar System. Our direct measurements of this surface reservoir of lunar water reveal that impact glass beads may store significant amounts of solar wind-derived water on the moon and imply that impact glass may be water reservoirs on other airless worlds,” concluded the study’s authors. “The presence of water in impact glass beads is compatible with distant detection of water in lower-latitude areas of the Moon, Vesta, and Mercury.” Our findings indicate that the impact glasses on the surface of Solar System airless bodies are capable of storing solar wind-derived water and releasing it to space.”
The glass beads aren’t the first time we’ve seen water on the Moon. NASA crashed a probe into the Cabeus crater in 2009, resulting in the finding of water; in 2018, NASA discovered direct evidence of ice deposits in the Moon’s permanently shadowed craters near its north and south poles. NASA and China/Russia want to establish lunar bases near the Moon’s South Pole within the next decade; both rival efforts expect to have livable sites operational by the early-to-mid-2030s.
