Apollo 17 Soil Matches Ancient Earth's Ocean Ridges In Water Content

StartsWithABang writes: They say that one of the most exciting phrases to hear in science is not "eureka!" but "that's funny," and the Apollo 17 astronauts, just over 43 years ago, certainly got such a moment when they discovered orange soil just beneath the grey regiolith. What turned out to be volcanic glass with tin inclusions had another surprise: olivine deposits that showed signs that they contained significant amounts of water inclusions when they were baked, at about ~1200 parts-per-million. This matches the water levels in Earth's upper mantle along ocean ridges, providing further evidence for the giant impact hypothesis and a common origin for the Earth and Moon.

Comments

Further proof

[Anonymous Coward]

Further proof they were actually on earth! Of course it matches what's just below the earth's regolith.

Right

[MagickalMyst]

FTA: "it’s the same concentration of water as rocks found in Earth’s interior! In other words, if you ever doubted that the rocks from the Moon and the rocks from the Earth came from the same place..."

Yep, the Nevada desert. Thanks Stanley!