In order to better understand the importance of the discovery of these Chinese scientists, it is necessary to first have some context and for this we must go back to the Apollo mission. When the astronauts reached the Moon, they collected many samples from the surface, and their study on Earth confirmed that our satellite was dry dusty ball.

A study published in Nature Astronomy by Chinese scientists suggests that this theory could be wrong, as after analyzing and isolating about 1,000 lunar mineral fragments recovered by the Chang’e-5 mission in 2020, they found a very special crystal known as “ULM- 1”, which contained water molecules trapped inside.

Total water molecules They represented 40% of the mass of this sample, which is an important proportion that has raised many expectations. In order for the results to be correct, it was verified that the sample was not contaminated with waste of any type, either terrestrial or fuel residues.

The study says this finding suggests that water molecules may persist in regions of the Moon that receive direct sunlight, but in the form hydrated crystalline salts. This gives us very useful new information regarding the characteristic limitations of water on satellites such as the Moon.

For scientists find real evidence The existence of water on our satellite has been one of the most important goals of recent decades. The Apollo mission was a huge disappointment in this sense because, as I said earlier, it only reinforced the theory of a completely dry satellite.

This theory began to change with the discoveries of Chandrayaan-1 in 2009, which revealed signs of a potentially hydrated mineral and water molecules in illuminated lunar regions and gave rise to new theories that were strengthened in 2020 by the discovery of water in the Clavius ​​crater, according to observations made through infrared radiation.

Now we not only have the data from these observations, but so do we we have real samples Since the Moon is only a few years old, we can study it in depth to gain new information about the Moon, including such important topics as its formation, composition, and evolution.

China still has many samples to study, since just a month ago the Chang’e-6 mission returned to Earth, which came loaded with samples extracted from the oldest and deepest area on the far side of the moon. Studying these samples could give us more than one surprise about our satellite, which has the peculiarity of still being known as “very unknown”.

Images: NASA.