Did The Moon Steal Water From Our Planet?

On the Moon, there exist molecules of water and ice, but how did these materials get up there? There’s a good chance that part of the water on the moon came from asteroids and comets colliding, but recent research reveals that Earth’s atmosphere may have also contributed.

As much as 3,500 cubic kilometers of surface frozen or subsurface liquid water may have been formed on the Moon as a result of hydrogen and oxygen ions escaping from Earth’s upper atmosphere and mixing on the Moon. As the Moon travels through the tail of the Earth’s magnetosphere, hydrogen and oxygen ions are thought to be pushed into the lunar surface. Every lunar month has five of these days.

There are broken magnetic field lines on Earth as a result of the solar wind pressing on this bubble. There are a number of broken connections that can be mended when the Moon interacts with Earth’s magnetosphere tail, causing hydrogen and oxygen ions to rush back into the Earth’s atmosphere.

According to the researchers, because there is no magnetosphere on the Moon, permafrost is likely formed when the ions collide with the surface. Some of the frost might be forced below the surface and transformed into liquid water by a number of geological processes. Even while scientists believe there are several ways water may have gotten to the Moon—including hydrogen and oxygen reactions caused by solar winds—a lot of it may have originated via this technique.

A steady buildup over billions of years since the Late Large Bombardment, during which the early Earth and Moon were battered by heavy impacts from other celestial things racing through space, is what the researchers propose. They say that’s what’s happened. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter utilized gravitational data to examine the Moon’s polar regions and a number of its largest craters. Rock fissures with the potential to trap permafrost were discovered by the researchers.