Earth’s atmosphere may be the partial source of the moon’s water

The work, led by Professor Günter Klitschka at the UAF Institute of Geophysics, adds to a growing body of research Above the water at the north and south poles of the moon.

The origin of lunar water

Finding water is key NASA Artemis ProjectThe planned long-term human presence on the Moon. NASA plans to return humans to the moon this decade.

“While NASA’s Artemis team plans to build a base camp at the moon’s south pole, water ions that originated many years ago on Earth could be used in the life support system for astronauts.Kletetschka said.

New research estimates that The moon’s polar regions can contain up to 3,500 cubic kilometers or more of surface permafrost, or liquid groundwater created by ions that have escaped from Earth’s atmosphere.. This is a similar size to Lake Huron in North America, the eighth largest lake in the world.

The researchers relied on this total at the expense of the slimmer model: 1% of Earth’s atmosphere exhaust reaches the moon.

in general, Most of the moon’s water is believed to have been deposited by asteroids and comets that collided with the moon.. Most of them were during a period known as the Late Heavy Bombardment. In that period, about 3.5 billion years ago, when the Solar System was about a billion years old, the early inner planets and Earth’s moon were said to have experienced an unusually strong impact from asteroids.

Scientists also suggest The hypothesis that the solar wind It is a source. The solar wind carries oxygen and hydrogen ions, which may have collected and deposited on the Moon as water molecules.

new theory

There is now an additional way to explain how water accumulates on the Moon.

The research was published on March 16, 2022 in the journal Scientific Reports In an article written by Kletetschka and co-author of Ph.D. Student Nicholas Hassoun from the Geophysical Institute and UAF’s Water and Environmental Research Center at the Institute of Northern Engineering. Among the co-authors are several colleagues from the Czech Republic.

Kletetschka and colleagues suggest that Hydrogen and oxygen ions enter the moon as it passes through the tail of the Earth’s magnetosphere, which occurs during the five days of the moon’s monthly journey around the planet. The magnetosphere is a teardrop-shaped bubble caused by the Earth’s magnetic field that protects the planet from a lot of constant flow of charged solar particles.

Recent measurements from multiple space agencies (NASA, European Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Indian Space Research Organization) revealed Large amounts of water-forming ions are present during the moon’s transit through this part of the magnetosphere.

These ions have slowly accumulated since the late heavy bombardment.

He called the presence of the moon in the tail of the magnetosphere magnetic tail, temporarily affect some lines of the Earth’s magnetic field, those that are broken and simply lost in space for several thousand kilometers. Not all Earth’s field lines are connected to the planet at both ends; Some have a single attachment point. Think of each of these things like a string attached to a post on a windy day.

The presence of the Moon in the magnetic tail causes some of the broken field lines to reconnect with their opposite broken counterpart. When that happens, the hydrogen and oxygen ions that escaped from the Earth rush into the reconnected field lines and accelerate back to Earth.

The authors of the research paper suggest that many of those returning ions strike the transiting moon, which does not have its own magnetosphere to repel them.

“As if the moon is in the bathroom: rain of water ions that return to the earth and fall on the surface of the moonKletetschka said.

Later, Ions combine to form lunar permafrost. Some of that, through geological and other processes such as asteroid collisions, is conducted below the surface, where it can turn into liquid water.

The research team used gravity data from lunar reconnaissance vehicle NASA to study the polar regions as well as several major lunar craters. Indicate anomalies in underground measurements in impact pits Locations of fractured rocks that may contain liquid water or ice. Gravity measurements at these subsurface locations indicate the presence of ice or liquid water.According to the research work.

reference

Distribution of the water phase near the lunar poles from the gravitational aspects. Gunther Klitschka, Jaroslav Klokonik, Nicholas Hasson, Jan Kosteliki, Alec Bezdik, and Kourosh Karimi. Scientific Reports Volume 12, Article No.: 4501 (2022).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-08305-x