Moon May Have Once Had Water

Smivs writes "US scientists have found evidence that water was held in the Moon's interior, challenging some elements of the theory of how Earth's satellite formed.The Moon is thought to have been created in a violent collision between Earth and another planet-sized object. Scientists thought the heat from this impact had vaporised all the water. But a new study in Nature magazine shows water was delivered to the lunar surface from the interior in volcanic eruptions three billion years ago. This suggests that water has been a part of the Moon since its early existence."

Comments

Manifold Space

[QuantumG]

Stephen Baxter wrote about tapping the water in the Moon in his novel Manifold Space. Apparently the notion of deep wells of water on the Moon has been seriously contemplated by astrophysicists since the early 70s.

Warning - Slashdot Title Spoiler

[Anonymous Coward]

The title says

"..challenging SOME ELEMENTS of the theory of how Earth's satellite formed.."

There is NO indication that the collision theory is wrong. It just gives a bit more detail about where liquid water was at the time. From TFA:

"..."It suggests that water was present within the Earth before the giant collision that formed the Moon," Dr Saal explained.

"That points to two possibilities: Water either was not completely vaporised in that collision or it was added a short time - less than 100 million years - afterward by volatiles introduced from the outside, such as with meteorites."

I suggest that after the collision there was still a lot of water floating round the two bodies, which would have fallen back onto both, so there's no real mystery raised by discovering trace amounts of water.....

Re:I never bought

[Chyeld]

I never bought that massive collision thing, something about it just doesn't seem right. Now there is some proof it isn't.

Not quite.

"That points to two possibilities: Water either was not completely vaporised in that collision or it was added a short time - less than 100 million years - afterward by volatiles introduced from the outside, such as with meteorites."

Once?

[oodaloop]

Do they not realize the moon has water on its surface now, albeit in its solid state? I realize this is news and everything, but the title implies the moon no longer has water.

Re:So what if the water evaporated in the collisio

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, let's see... because there is not enough atmosphere to hold it in? I understand that meteorology isn't very popular but this is basic stuff.

Argh, no.

[blair1q]

The moon has water.
The water is bound up in the rocky material, the same way it was on Earth 4.5 billion years ago (when Earth was still pretty much molten).

Earth did not have pooling surface water until hundreds of millions of years later. The moon apparently cooled quickly enough that free water did not exude from the rocky material. Either that, or the moon is small enough that any exudate just floated off into space rather than forming an atmosphere (H20 is lighter than O2 or N2, so that is plausible, since there is no other gas in the lunar atmosphere, either).

Slashdot articles are vetted by someone before becoming main topics, right? No? Yes? Is one of the criteria now how much controversy the wrong information in the article will cause?

Re:Water on Moon and Mars

[fermion]

Here is my understanding without seeing any of the peer reviewed published work. It does not have so much to do with the water, as the formation the water is in and the how it hints at the origins of the moon. The rocks that water is in is volcanic, likely formed on the moon. This indicates that some time the past, the moon was volcanically active, and these volcanos ejected rock and water. The concentration of water in these rocks appears to suggest that concentration of water match the concentration in the Earth's mantle. So what this points to a cool event that pulled the moon off the earth, but left the water intact. that water was then flung off later on by volcanos.

So while the moon may still be a part of the earth flung off is not collision, that event would have to cool enough not to boil off all the water. This tends not to support the idea of an mars size rock hitting the earth, ejecting rocks into orbit, and heating everything so much that all the water boils off, which is why it was expected that the moon would be dry, except for anything brought after the formation.