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Discovery of Water In Moon May Alter Origin Theory

MarkWhittington writes "Scientists, working on a NASA grant, have made another startling discovery concerning water on the Moon. It seems that the interior of the Moon has far more water in it than previously thought — as much as the Earth does, apparently. Researchers made this discovery by examining samples of volcanic glass brought back to Earth by the Apollo 17 astronauts. These tiny beads of glass have about 750 parts per million of water in them: about the same amount as similar volcanic glass on Earth. It is postulated that more water than previously imagined exists deep below the lunar surface and was brought up and trapped in these crystalline beads by volcanic action billions of years ago." Phil Plait's original post adds more detail.

2 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Comets? by jklovanc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Couldn't it be possible that the comet impacts created the water containing glass? A sufficiently large impact should melt some rock that may look lite it was brought up from inside the moon. The current theory is that water is deposited by comets; why not the glass too?

  2. Re:Off topic but... by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    At least it's not an entry on the Fox News website.

    Oh, yes, at least. Better that we wait a year for some other news source to pick up the story!

    --
    "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
    --- Jerry Garcia