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Moon May Have Once Had Water

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the also-i-may-once-have-had-whisky dept.

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."

23 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Moon River? by DrLudicrous · · Score: 5, Funny

    Moon River... wider than a mile... I'm crossing you in style some day.

  2. Manifold Space by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
    1. Re:Manifold Space by AmigaMMC · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I always thought Stephen Baxter was ahead of his time. In all his novels he shows an uncanny ability to predict a believable far away future.

    2. Re:Manifold Space by akzeac · · Score: 3, Funny

      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.

      The way you speak of the 70s as if it was a long time ago makes me start to feel really old.

    3. Re:Manifold Space by smittyoneeach · · Score: 2, Funny

      You think you're old...
      Sure, they funded manned trips to the moon those decades ago.
      Think of the pyramids of Egypt. They were built thousands of years ago.
      You try funding a project of that scope today, with that kind of durability, and see how far you get.
      Kids these days...

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  3. Old news by Werrismys · · Score: 5, Funny

    Tintin found glaciers on the moon decades ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorers_on_the_Moon

    --
    'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
  4. English may once had grammar by Idaho · · Score: 3, Funny

    See subject (of my post and the article)

    --
    Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
  5. I've cracked it by cupantae · · Score: 5, Funny

    "another planet-sized object"
    Perhaps Xenu's spacecraft was bigger than we imagined.

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    --
    1. Re:I've cracked it by ross.w · · Score: 2, Funny

      The stretch version of the DC-8?

      --
      If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
  6. heh. by apodyopsis · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can picture it now. A nice full Earth, a glorious tranquil sea.... oh wait.

  7. should be easy to resolve this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Why doesn't somebody just ask Sen. McCain?

  8. Warning - Slashdot Title Spoiler by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.....

  9. Re:Duh. by Progman3K · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...but there ain't no whales.

    then how do you explain the song?

    We're whalers on the moon
    We carry a harpoon

    *sheesh, I used to go to school with that guy*

    --
    I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
  10. Re:Duh. by rugatero · · Score: 2, Insightful

    then how do you explain the song?

    We're whalers on the moon
    We carry a harpoon

    But there ain't no whales
    So we tell tall tales
    And sing a whaling tune

    --
    This comment is for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to real insight or information is purely coincidental.
  11. Water? by MikeDirnt69 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Water? WHO CARES!

    Does it ever had oil?

    --
    Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
  12. Water on Moon and Mars by Bombula · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I'm not sure why there's such suprise about discovering water on the Moon, Mars and other bodies in the solar system. Not only are comets and debris certain to have delivered significant quantities to every significant object in the solar system, it seems patently obvious that accretion is not a perfect centrifuge. If it were otherwise, Mercury would be comprised of 100% of one material - say, gold - while earth would be 100% iron or nickel, Mars 100% something else, and so on.

    Since this is not the case, it seems not just obvious but inevitable that virtually all materials be found in some quantity within every signficant body in the solar system.

    --
    A-Bomb
    1. Re:Water on Moon and Mars by meringuoid · · Score: 2, Insightful
      If there's life on the closest planets to us, it's basically impossible for us to be the only intelligent life forms out there.

      Not necessarily. We'd need to do some kind of molecular analysis before we made declarations like that.

      Earth is virulently alive, it's thoroughly infested with life everywhere you look. It's quite possible that life found on, say, Mars would be a descendant of life from Earth: think bacterial spores riding a rock from impact ejecta.

      If Mars-life has the same basic DNA chemistry and the same molecular chirality as Earth-life, then they're likely to have shared a common origin, which tells us nothing about the likelihood of life among the stars. If, however, Mars-life is entirely alien right down to the molecular level, then it's likely to be of independent origin - native Martian. That changes all the estimates of the likelihood of life spontaneously emerging, and gives us to expect a universe full of living things.

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    2. Re:Water on Moon and Mars by fermion · · Score: 2, Informative
      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.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  13. Re:I never bought by Chyeld · · Score: 2, Informative

    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."

  14. Once? by oodaloop · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  15. Uhh, Yeah by gerstens · · Score: 2, Funny

    Where do you think the whales were hiding?

  16. Vaporized doesn't mean destroyed. by radiumhahn · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Scientists thought the heat from this impact had vaporised all the water.

    The atoms from the molecules still exist. Heck, the molecules probably still exist except for the few torn apart by very extreme heat and then used to oxidize other materials which probably would have been the loose Hydrogen. Almost all igneous rocks on Earth's surface, contain some water. They were formed at temperatures that "vaporize water".

  17. Argh, no. by blair1q · · Score: 3, Informative

    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?