Water Molecules May Survive on the Moon's Surface All Day Long By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contrib

[Judi Lynn]

By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor | September 8, 2017 02:18pm ET

Water may be bound to rocks across the moon's entire surface all day long, a new study finds.

This finding suggests that large amounts of water molecules could be permanently present on the surface of the moon, the study's researchers said.

Previous research suggested that water molecules could exist across the surface of the moon. This water does not exist in the form of ice, save perhaps in the permanent shadows of some craters at the lunar poles. Instead, it is chemically bound to rocks in the uppermost layer of the lunar surface, to a depth "of less than a micrometer [0.00004 inches]," study lead author Christian Wöhler, a physicist at the Technical University of Dortmund in Germany, told Space.com. [Photos: The Search for Water on the Moon]

The earlier work found that such lunar water might be bound to rocks only at high latitudes, away from the moon's equator. Researchers suggested this might be because sunlight is stronger at the lunar equator, leading heat or solar ultraviolet rays to remove most or all of the water there, Wöhler said.

More:
https://www.space.com/38095-moon-surface-water-molecules-all-day.html?utm_source=notification

[angstlessk]

1. This being a political blog...I read, mistakenly

Walter Mondale, instead of 'Water Molecules'