WASHINGTON — The moon isn't the dry dull place it seems. Traces of water lurk in the dirt unseen.
Three different space probes found the chemical signature of water all over the moon's surface, surprising the scientists who at first doubted the unexpected measurement until it was confirmed independently and repeatedly.
It's not enough moisture to foster homegrown life on the moon. But if processed in mass quantities, it might provide resources — drinking water and rocket fuel — for future moon-dwellers, scientists say. The water comes and goes during the lunar day.
It's not a lot of water. If you took a two-liter soda bottle of lunar dirt, there would probably be a medicine-dropperful of water in it, said University of Maryland astronomer Jessica Sunshine, one of the scientists who discovered the water. Another way to think of it is if you want a drink of water, it would take a baseball diamond's worth of dirt, said team leader Carle Pieters of Brown University.
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"It's sort of just sticking on the surface," Sunshine said. "We always think of the moon as dead, and this is sort of a dynamic process that's going on."
The discovery, with three studies published in the journal Science on Thursday and a NASA briefing, could refocus interest in the moon. The appeal of the moon waned after astronauts visited 40 years ago and called it "magnificent desolation."
Over the last decade, astronomers have found some signs of underground ice on the moon's poles. But this latest discovery is quite different. It finds unexpected and pervasive water clinging to the surface of soil, not absorbed into it.
"It is drier than any desert we have here," Sunshine said.
The water was spotted by spacecraft that either circled the moon or flew by. All three ships used the same type of instrument that looked at the absorption of a specific wavelength of light that is the chemical signature of only two molecules: water and hydroxyl. Hydroxyl is one atom of hydrogen with one atom of oxygen, instead of two hydrogen atoms in water.
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NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, is circling the moon conducting mapping and other exploration in preparation for an eventual manned mission to the moon. The scientific mission is headed by Mark Robinson of Arizona State University's School of Earth & Space Exploration and includes Alfred S. McEwen of the the University of Arizona's Department of Planetary Science.
In addition to mapping and identifying potential landing sites, LRO's one-year mission will measure lunar temperatures and radiation levels.
LRO instruments have also produced images of potential target sites for a companion mission, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, which will smash into the moon's south pole Oct. 9. Scientists are hoping to find evidence of buried ice in the debris kicked up by the impact.
Staff and wire reports
