Over the past few years, multiple studies have been telling us
the same thing: The moon is not the simple barren wasteland it
once seemed. In 2008 and 2009, for instance, the Indian lunar
probe Chandrayaan-1 and NASA's LCROSS probes independently found
evidence of water ice on the moon, while reanalysis of the rocks
collected by astronauts on Apollo missions has led to a flood of
new data indicating that the moon's formation wasn't waterless.
Now, in a study published on Thursday by Science, scientists who
examined more relics from Apollo report that the interior of the
moon has a lot more water than we originally thoughtperhaps as
much as the outer part of the Earth's own mantle. But don't go
planning a trip to a lunar water park anytime soonin this case,
the water is trapped inside tiny crystals that are the remnants
of a volcanic eruption. Water in the Rocks It might sound
strange, but on Earth, water can be present within magma. The
compounds called volatiles, including water, chlorine and
sulfur, can dis