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From late 2013 to early 2014,
a NASA mission called LADEE
explored the Moon's
tenuous atmosphere and its dust
environment.
Now, LADEE's observations
have led to a new discovery: the
lunar surface is
periodically releasing water.
What we discovered is that the
surface releases its water when
the Moon is bombarded
by micrometeoroids.
This is especially noticeable
during meteor showers.
What we also found is that the
surface that's releasing the
water is being protected by a
layer, a few centimeters of dry
soil that can only be breached
by large micrometeoroids.
When micrometeoroids impact the
surface of the Moon, most of the
material in the
crater is vaporized.
There is also a shock wave
that propagates outward.
That shock wave carries enough
energy to release the water
that's coating the
grains of the soil.
Most of that water will get
released into space, and that's
the signature that LADEE detects
with its instrument from its
orbit.
By analyzing the data
returned by the neutral mass
spectrometer, we found that the
intensity and the frequencies of
the fluctuations of signals
from the water to be perfectly
correlated with
known meteor streams.
For example, we were able to
detect a big spike of water
during the Geminid meteor shower
that occurred in December of
2013.
Thanks to LADEE, we now know
that trace amounts of water are
widely distributed
across the lunar surface.
This discovery provides a
potential resource for future
exploration, and it improves
our understanding the Moon's
geologic past and its
continued evolution.
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