In December of 2020, the Chang'E-5 probe visited the Moon and collected a sample of lunar material to return to Earth. The mission took observations of the surrounding lunar rock to help contextualize the sample in future studies.
The observations have turned out to be a treasure. Scientists have found evidence of water on the moon.
Water can be found in abundances of up to 120 parts per million in the Northern Oceanus Procellarum, according to the data taken using Chang'E-5's lunar mineralogical spectrometer.
We've seen water on the Moon before, but it's been either from a passing craft or a sample returned to Earth. This is the first time that evidence has been recovered from in situ measurements.
The breakthrough supports previous findings that water could be abundant on the Moon, bound up with minerals in the lunar regolith, the top layer of dust and rubble on the Moon's surface.
The abundance is incredibly dry and it would not be easy to get water from it, so future Moon missions will not have an easy-to-hand water source.
The Chang'E-5's measurement of a boulder in its vicinity revealed a higher water content.
The landers view of the moon. Chang'E-5
The boulder is light and vesicular, which strongly suggests an underground volcanic origin. This suggests there may be more water sources in the lunar interior.
According to Honglei Lin of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the rock may have been excavated from an older basaltic unit and ejected to the landing site of Chang'E-5.
The lower water content of the soil may suggest the degassing of the mantle reservoir beneath the Chang'E-5 landing site.
The Oceanus Procellarum's history of extensive volcanism is consistent with this interpretation. The history was reinforced by the fact that the region was volcanically active far longer than we had thought.
This suggests that volcanic deposits may be necessary for human life support for long-term lunar bases at lower latitudes.
Future studies of the water content of the rock will be needed to determine if it contains water from the lunar interior. They hope that their findings will be cross-referenced against future studies of the returned sample to learn more about the water in the lunar regolith.
They wrote in their paper that it was not clear whether the water was hydroxyl or molecular.
Future studies should analyze the water and other volatile contents as well as the speciation of lithic fragments of vesicular rocks in the returned samples.
Science Advances has published the research.
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