The lunar surface. On the right, water-rich mineral soil shown in blue.
Here’s an awe-striking item to start your weekend: this morning, the New York Times reported that NASA found water on the moon, at least 24 gallons at their test site—that’s about half the amount of H2O a bathtub will hold. And it’s not just ice packed far below the surface; scientists have determined that regolith—the upper layer of moon soil—has a small percentage of water laced throughout that forms and evaporates on a (lunar) daily basis.
“The accepted wisdom has been that the moon is and has always been bone dry,” said planetary scientist Michael Weiss, an associate professor at MIT, so this discovery was “enormously surprising and exciting.”
New knowledge for rocket scientists just goes to show: even the surest, most accepted conventions—about phenomena out past the atmosphere or in your own practice—can dissolve in fantastic new findings upon closer look.
