The re-examination of ‘glass bead,’ collected from Moon by the on board astronauts of Apollo 15 and 17 in the 1970s has hinted about the presence of much more amount of water within Moon as previously estimated. The new research, conducted by scientists from the Brown University and published on Monday, has claimed about detection of water, trapped in the volcanic glass beads of Moon, a breakthrough which has ignited the possibility of colonising Moon shortly.
Moon, which is long-believed to be a desiccated and inhospitable celestial body is now claimed to be much wetter than it previously thought to be. Based on the findings of the latest re-examination of ‘Volcanic Glass Beads, brought back by the crews of Apollo 15 and 17 in the 1970s, a team of scientists from the Brown University, United States, has claimed that Earth’s only natural satellite – Moon is much damper than the previous estimation. According to Astronomer Bradley Tucker, water is expected to be omnipresent all across the moon. Earlier, scientists only believed the water to be presented in the region poles of Moon, while the latest finding has denied the previous hypothesis.
The study paper, led by the Ralph Milliken and colleagues from the Brown University claimed that Moon surprisingly contains a larger amount of sub-surface water resources, which someday may persuade the thirst of lunar explorers. Scientists, by examining the satellite images clicked by India’s Chandrayaan-1 orbiter and the samples of collected by Apollo 15 and 17 missions, have come across a substantial evidence about the water trapped in “volcanic glass beads” in prehistoric residue and magma that volcanoes ejected and churned out across the lunar surface.
In the official study paper, published in Nature Geoscience on Monday, lead author Ralph Milliken said, “Nearly all the volcanic deposits are exhibiting the signatures of water presence within Moon’s interior that is bulk in quantity.”
