August 7, 2024
Chang'e-5 Mission Discovers Water in Moon Soil
There's water on the Moon, and scientists have just confirmed where a lot of it may be hiding.
A mineral in Moon dust collected by China's Chang'e-5 lander and ferried to Earth was recently found to contain so much water, it makes up 41 percent of its weight.
The mineral is similar to novograblenovite, which was only identified a few years ago in basaltic rock from Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. Both the lunar and terrestrial versions have the chemical formula (NH4)MgCl3·6H2O, and have similar crystalline structures. Image credit: A visualization of a lunar mineral containing molecular water. (Chinese Academy of Sciences)
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