China’s space mission has discovered a potential water source on the moon.
China’s Chang’e 5 explorer has found small glass beads containing water in a lunar crater. Samples collected from a mission in 2020 indicate that these beads have 2000 parts per million of water, making them a potential resource for human water supply in future lunar missions.
Researchers suggest that these glass beads were formed as a result of asteroid impacts on the Earth’s moon or ancient volcanic activity. These beads contained oxygen atoms, which then combined with hydrogen ions from solar storms, resulting in a chemical reaction that produced water.
Scientists claim that these glass beads are very small, ranging in size from a few micrometers to a few millimeters. However, their quantity is so large that they could provide approximately 270 trillion kilograms of water, equivalent to filling 100 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.
