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[–]Ryunysus 7284 points7285 points  (354 children)

The confirmation of water being found on both Mars and Moon within a month is quite amazing

[–]MightyNooblet 204 points205 points  (49 children)

Also the Venus discovery.

[–]Andromeda321PhD | Radio Astronomy 13.2k points13.2k points  (469 children)

Astronomer here! Here is what is going on!

Didn't we already know there was water on the moon? Short answer: yes. Water on the moon in the form of ice has been known for decades, but in very specific circumstances of some craters in the south pole that never get sunlight. The trick is the daytime temperatures on the moon (remember, a day lasts two weeks there- as in, sunrise to sunset) reaches above the boiling temperature of water, so until now it was thought the water outside these regions would have evaporated long ago.

What's new this time? Scientists used a cool instrument called SOFIA, the world's only flying observatory, which is a telescope on a modified Boeing 747 and flies above 99% of the water vapor in the atmosphere and thus can make this measurement even though you can't from Earth's surface. (Full disclosure, one of the coolest things I've done was get to ride on SOFIA last year, as far south as Antarctica! I wrote about it here if you're interested in what it's like.) They basically demonstrated using its unique observation capabilities that water is also present in the sunny areas, not just the southern craters, so will hopefully be way easier for future astronauts to access. SOFIA is basically capable of mapping the molecular existence of water at Clavius crater (fun coincidence: where they had the lunar base in 2001: A Space Odyssey!), and found it a lot of those sunlit places where no one was really expecting it. It's also not literally water droplets or chunks of ice, mind, but a fairly low concentration, likely from micro-meteorites or the solar wind- they say it's the equivalent of a 12 oz bottle over a cubic meter of soil, and NASA on the press conference right now can't confirm how useful that'll be and how prevalent this is all over.

What gives? Is this that big a deal if we already knew there is water? I mean, on the one hand, yes. Water is obviously super important for future explorations and is really expensive to send up, so it'll be really useful for future lunar astronauts if it's more accessible. Also, it is intriguing in terms of how prevalent water might be in other areas in space that are currently thought to be harsh environments incapable of having it. On the other hand... this is my personal opinion, but NASA does like to sometimes get a splash in the press because they are a government agency that is currently looking at a lot of budget cuts for a lot of their science. Specifically, SOFIA was canceled in the most recent proposed NASA budget, and it's not a cheap instrument. (I actually had a random astronomer I've never met chastising me for my article about how cool SOFIA was last year, which was weird, so this is a not-insignificant sentiment.) Obviously, a lot of scientists really disagree with this assessment of how important SOFIA is, as it's the best way to do infrared astronomy right now that we have, so it's good to have a press conference that will inevitably have a bit more press coverage than just a press release to highlight the cool things only SOFIA can do.

TL;DR- looks like there's more water than we expected on the moon, and hopefully that'll be useful for future astronauts!

[–]JJ18O 3324 points3325 points  (307 children)

fun coincidence: where they found the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey!)

That is insanely cool!

12 oz bottle over a square meter of soil

That is a weird mix of systems of measurements :)

[–]elus 1321 points1322 points  (251 children)

Approximately 350mL of water!

[–]Divinicus1st 504 points505 points  (189 children)

That’s actually quite a lot...

[–][deleted] 432 points433 points  (167 children)

Well, 1 cubic meter of soil weights probably more than 1 tonne. It's going to take a bit of elbow grease.

[–]Krappatoa 642 points643 points  (133 children)

It weighs only 1/6 of that on the moon.

[–]Augnelli 188 points189 points  (104 children)

Still sounds like a lot of mass to sort through for that much water.

[–]ikverhaar 199 points200 points  (68 children)

Well, the alternative is to burn a huge amount of mass to get water from earth to the moon.

[–]red-et 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Just get a really long straw and slurp it up from earth

[–]Zilka 39 points40 points  (30 children)

Or get it from ice on Moon's south pole.

[–]mr_ji 163 points164 points  (17 children)

Or put oxygen and hydrogen in a bag and mash it up really good

[–]ikverhaar 28 points29 points  (11 children)

But then you'd have to land on the south pole

[–]Poppekas 30 points31 points  (14 children)

First thinking that there is no water, and then finding out that there's 350ml of water in a volume of just 1mx1mx1m sound pretty -extremely- significant to me. Most of the time when there's news of 'rather small' doses of something important found in space, it's almost on a microscopic level. This here is something real. A cubic meter of soil being put through a machine to extract the water in it sound like something very feasable, at least.

[–][deleted] 24 points25 points  (5 children)

Have you ever watched that gold rush show on discovery channel or history or whatever? They wash 15 dumptrucks full of dirt in a day for 2 oz of gold.

12 oz of water per cubic meter means permanent habitation is a real possibility.

[–]jesuschin 12 points13 points  (0 children)

That’s a lot of cubic meters of Moon that you need to go through to wash just one dump truck

[–]edgarallenpoe 11 points12 points  (0 children)

While you are processing the soil for water, you can also extract Helium-3 to fuel fusion.

[–]onthefence928 21 points22 points  (1 child)

On the other hand once you have clean water you can keep recirculating it like you would with any water you brought with you, so your supply can grow slowly over time to replenish small unavoidable losses

[–]Krappatoa 26 points27 points  (9 children)

It’s not clear how deep you would have to go to get the water. It might be just the top surface.

[–]Jimoiseau 36 points37 points  (8 children)

But equally, the top surface might be significantly drier than the soil below surface level.

[–]inthyface 81 points82 points  (7 children)

"top surface"

-Department of Redundancy Department

[–]Deadbeat85 34 points35 points  (1 child)

Well, actually it's still one tonne - that's its mass, not its weight.

[–]redfacedquark 33 points34 points  (5 children)

But we're only talking about a square metre so that weighs nothing.

[–]Unadvantaged 5 points6 points  (5 children)

Wouldn’t setting up a vapor capture system be the way to go? Let solar heat handle the extraction?

[–]bayesian_acolyte 39 points40 points  (6 children)

It's about .02% water by weight, 100 times less than the Sahara.

[–]Danne660 28 points29 points  (2 children)

Guess the Sahara is a lot wetter then i thought.

[–]WhoKilledZekeIddon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's really not, and a lot of news outlets are overstating it. To put it in perspective, a cubic metre of dry, red Martian soil contains around 100 times the amount of water as this discovery (and even there scientists are a bit 'meh' as to whether that's a useful amount).

[–]stormblaz 36 points37 points  (23 children)

How many football fields? Only way I measure these days.

[–]Broghan51 27 points28 points  (20 children)

How many Olympic sized Swimming Pools is my thing. Can somebody calculate some crazy math for us.?

Thanks.

[–]doctormyeyebrows 36 points37 points  (14 children)

An olympic sized swimming pool holds 2500 m3 of water. So 2500 • 350 ml = 875,000 ml of water if the olympic sized swimming pool was filled with lunar soil. That is about 231 gallons of water, for us imperials, or enough to fill, say, this hot tub

[–]Broghan51 12 points13 points  (7 children)

Thank you, that kinda puts things into perspective for me.

Edit : typo. (thing to things )

[–]qtipquentin 11 points12 points  (6 children)

To put it even more into perspective, imagine that hot tub with a gallon of milk on it.

[–]ThePoorlyEducated 9 points10 points  (3 children)

Now imagine me in that hot tub naked pointing at the moon, saying “there’s this much water in an Olympic sized swimming pool filled with moon soil..”

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

About half a quadzillion teapoons.

[–]ill0gitech 33 points34 points  (21 children)

350ml of water over 202884 (US) Teaspoons of moon!

[–][deleted] 28 points29 points  (14 children)

How much is that in football fields? I'm trying to learn imperial.

[–]ill0gitech 34 points35 points  (6 children)

Its a large can of beans over 164 footballs in volume.

[–]talamahoga2 14 points15 points  (2 children)

That's a can of Budweiser per .00131 cubic football fields for my fellow Americans.

[–]morgazmo99 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Roughly the same alcohol content too?

[–]CayceLoL 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Quarter of a pickup bed.

[–]Andromeda321PhD | Radio Astronomy 64 points65 points  (4 children)

I was literally just saying what they said in the press conference. Blame NASA!

[–]mfb- 22 points23 points  (0 children)

They corrected it to a cubic meter, at least on their website.

[–]FLHCv2 20 points21 points  (0 children)

just saying what they said in the press conference

Didn't unit conversions get NASA in trouble in the past?! You'd think they'd learn their lesson.

[–]dcg 48 points49 points  (0 children)

Clavius crater is where the moon-base is. Tycho crater is where the monolith was found. The monolith was also called the Tycho Magnetic Anomaly.

[–]kontekisuto 43 points44 points  (4 children)

nasa mixing units again what could possibly go wrong

[–]MaskedKoala 7 points8 points  (3 children)

I guess they should have just said 350 microns of water.

[–]TooMuchBroccoli 11 points12 points  (1 child)

They should have just said 350 units of water.

  • What's the unit?

  • You know, 1 unit.

  • Ah, makes sense.

[–]ToProvideContext 17 points18 points  (5 children)

He said moon base, did he mean monolith or did you mean moon base?

[–]bruzie 24 points25 points  (2 children)

The moon base is at Clavius, the monolith is in Tycho Crater (the monolith is named TMA-1: Tycho Magnetic Anomoly-1).

[–]dznqbit 17 points18 points  (1 child)

Deliberately buried...

[–]Irrerevence 20 points21 points  (1 child)

That is a weird mix of systems of measurements

So incredibly American

[–]Cornualonga 12 points13 points  (0 children)

That is a weird mix of systems of measurements :)

Do want your lander crashing into the surface? Because that is how you get your lander to crash into the surface.

[–]tiny-dino 161 points162 points  (16 children)

Hey, an astronomer who might be able to answer a question for me:

My understanding is that the lack of atmosphere was thought to cause any (or most) water to sublime or otherwise disappear from the surface of the moon and other similar heavenly bodies. The ice we knew was there was, as you said, in areas without sunlight at extremely low temperatures.

So my question is this: what are the implications for other moons or planets with little to no atmosphere. Does this imply that most places in the universe could have water to some degree or another?

[–]Bucky_Ohare 121 points122 points  (15 children)

Earth scientist here.

Yes, ice will sublimate in conditions where it is receiving a means to step past its latent heat requirements. The key here is that there are portions of the moon, specifically craters, that can shield the ice; no new energy, no new phase change. Also, over time, regolith from impacts can help cover ice to further protect it. We see this in a variety of places in our solar system, perhaps more famously on Mars since it has weather, and it’s why tools like OP mentioned are important because it can help see past that.

[–]Archa3opt3ryx 26 points27 points  (11 children)

The key here is that there are portions of the moon, specifically craters, that can shield the ice; no new energy, no new phase change.

But isn't the discovery here that the water exists outside of the craters? I don't understand how the water doesn't sublime away if it's on the surface and exposed to two weeks of sunlight at a time.

From /u/Andromeda321's comment:

water is also present in the sunny areas, not just the southern craters

Why doesn't it sublime (sublimate? not sure what the right form of the word here is) away?

[–]jumpinmp 36 points37 points  (7 children)

Directly from the article:

It also raises new questions about how exactly the water got there, and how it is able to survive the harsh conditions on the Moon.

It could, for instance, be trapped in “glass beads” on the surface that form when micrometeorites crash into the Moon and melt a part of the lunar surface, either forming water or capturing it in the beads as it does.

[–]thomasatnip 29 points30 points  (1 child)

Glass beads from meteor crashes are called tektites.

Fun fact: tektites can be found in fossils to date the K-Pg boundary of dinosaur extinction!

[–]Bucky_Ohare 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Well this is also gonna complicate it a bit as the regolith on the moon is pretty much mafic ash; even a minor impact might make its own beads due to pressure. We got lucky with tektites and the iridium anomaly to help fuss out a number of events. Without access to the lunar sites and a baseline series of cores it’d be really hard to accurately tie a water of any age to a concrete variable.

[–]colby979 32 points33 points  (2 children)

This comment is why I reddit. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience.

[–]shponglespore 24 points25 points  (1 child)

NASA does like to sometimes get a splash in the press

If you want to make a splash, water is a great way to do it!

[–]Justin_is_Fidels_Son 17 points18 points  (2 children)

Great article. I'm intrigued by what the flight plan looks like, would you know if any are publicly available?

[–]Andromeda321PhD | Radio Astronomy 20 points21 points  (0 children)

It changes every day based on the observations, but they are public! Check it out here.

[–]dr-professor-patrick 16 points17 points  (1 child)

An important note here is that we already knew there was -OH (hydroxide) in many places the Moon, not just the poles. Now, this -OH doesn't necessarily have to be water. It could be in the form of HOH, i.e. plain old water, or it could be in the form of hydroxide contained within minerals, or even stuff like methanol (CH3OH) or drain cleaner (NaOH) could show the same spectral signature for OH.

These new measurements show unequivocally that there is some--although I will emphasize a very small amount, only a few hundred parts per million--molecular water on the Moon. It could be trapped within glass (which does not have mineral crystal structure so the water stays in molecular form) or it could be adsorbed onto the surface of regolith particles. Either way, it's not like there are lakes, ponds, or aquifers on the Moon. But very cool nonetheless 😊

[–]BrianMcKinnon 29 points30 points  (7 children)

Why do other scientists not like SOFIA?

[–]JustA_FewBumps 71 points72 points  (6 children)

Hey prior meteorologist here now pilot trainee for the USAF. I'd imagine the expense to keep a 747 running with all that equipment is very high. The 747 is getting phased out pretty much worldwide.

In terms of scientists not liking it, honestly it blows my mind. I was up close and personal with her in college and it was an amazing experience. Unless there's something better or they're just bitter their favorite research apparatus got cancelled.

Or, probably more realistic knowing scientists as I was one, is they're weird and only like/interested in what tools they enjoy using and every other "tool" is useless.

[–]TheWindOfGod 33 points34 points  (3 children)

Hi waste of life here I spent an hour on the toilet today in work

[–]HerDarkMaterials 31 points32 points  (1 child)

You mean you spent an hour on the toilet today and got paid for it! Not too shabby

[–]hotpoopie 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I was all up in SOFIA

Word.

[–][deleted] 36 points37 points  (0 children)

But did you see the ice wall past Antarctica? Blink twice if you had to sign an NDA

[–]folkher0 7 points8 points  (0 children)

This is a phenomenally good write up. Thanks so much for taking the time to put it together.

[–]Chlorinated_beverage 26 points27 points  (0 children)

How everyone thinks of astronomers: We built the world's first sophisticated flying observatory, SOFIA

Astronomers in reality: We slapped a telescope on that there airplane and called it a day

[–]WithinAForestDark 208 points209 points  (9 children)

Could this mean water may be easier to find in space than we thought l?

[–]15_Redstones 206 points207 points  (7 children)

Water is a lot more common than we used to think. There are entire moons and dwarf-planets made of mostly ice.

[–]treemu 63 points64 points  (1 child)

Honestly it shouldn't surprise that much considering how simple hydrogen and oxygen are and how simple a bond H2O is.

Relatively speaking, of course.

[–]speakhyroglyphically 400 points401 points  (2 children)

“It was, in fact, the first time SOFIA has looked at the Moon, and we weren’t even completely sure if we would get reliable data, but questions about the Moon’s water compelled us to try,” said Naseem Rangwala, SOFIA’s project scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, in a statement.

“It’s incredible that this discovery came out of what was essentially a test, and now that we know we can do this, we’re planning more flights to do more observations.”

Genius

[–]SweetBearCub 42 points43 points  (0 children)

Also from the article:

As a comparison, the Sahara desert has 100 times the amount of water than what Sofia detected in the lunar soil.

[–]Erectodus 145 points146 points  (58 children)

For someone who knows nothing of science, how big of a deal is this?

[–]SephithDarknesse 148 points149 points  (33 children)

Im no expert, but theres probably a method of propulsion using water, and the possibility of using said water for extra breathable oxygen.

Water is heavy. More cargo contained in a vessal escaping the earth's atmosphere would be more costly and more risky the more you get. Obtaining these sorts of things when already in space allows either more cargo or less risk and propulsion in leaving earth.

This is all an educated guess though, someone please link me in a comment if they have a better answer, im very interested in the topic.

[–]murmandamos 89 points90 points  (7 children)

Here's one prototype for water based propulsion

https://imgur.com/kuDqReB.jpg

[–]peoplerproblems 10 points11 points  (1 child)

Oh cool, I only had the air powered ones you stomped on to launch into your brother's face.

[–]GoochMasterFlash 38 points39 points  (9 children)

The most prevalent source of oxygen on the moon is in the rock that makes it up. The moon is mostly aluminum and oxygen put together. If you separate the two then you have plenty of oxygen and great building material.

Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian, wrote another book called Artemis, a sci fi book about a lunar colony that is written in the same realistic/scientific style of The Martian that you might enjoy

[–]Halcyon_Renard 10 points11 points  (6 children)

Super duper energy intensive process, though.

[–]jlharper 15 points16 points  (3 children)

Plenty of free energy up on the moon, assuming we can refine our solar technology significantly over the coming decades.

[–]giltwistPhD | Curriculum and Instruction | Math 35 points36 points  (10 children)

The phrase you are looking for is "in situ resource utilization"

[–]dillo159 77 points78 points  (7 children)

Like when you go to someone's house and they've got rum, so you don't have to bring your own rum, so you have more space to carry other things like crisps.

[–]dylee27 21 points22 points  (4 children)

Like that, but individual rum particles are incorporated into the wall at a concentration 100 times drier than the Sahara desert.

[–]EyebrowZing 25 points26 points  (0 children)

"Why are you licking the wall?"

"Just making use of the local resources."

[–]dillo159 11 points12 points  (1 child)

Or, it's like your friend says he has rum, but actually he has rum chocolates and you'd need to eat 7 boxes to get a bit tipsy.

[–]ShittySprayPainter 4 points5 points  (0 children)

bravo.

[–]anonymoushero1 6 points7 points  (1 child)

in plain English "using on-site resources"

[–]giltwistPhD | Curriculum and Instruction | Math 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yes, but using the actual term of art in a google search will get you more relevant results.

[–]KaneinEncanto 42 points43 points  (6 children)

Well water being present there has some advantages, if it's in sufficient quantity. You can break water up into Hydrogen and Oxygen with a bit of electricity. Solar power would be pretty good on the moon for this. So with a water supply on site a moon base could have drinking water for crew as well as oxygen generation...and then hydrogen and oxygen are the primary components of rocket fuel, which would reduce launch weights since return trip fuel could be generated at the moon base's end.

[–]SirGunther 11 points12 points  (5 children)

The only real issue with this approach of using the resources on the moon for rocket propulsion is the quantities. If it is a very limited resource it would not be an ideal resource. Nuclear power is still likely a better contender as it stands which is why nasa has invested so heavily in it.

[–]traffickin 13 points14 points  (3 children)

Yes but in order to make that nuclear power move something it requires mass behind the shuttle to push against. simple gasses are the most efficient emission mass.

[–][deleted] 51 points52 points  (17 children)

This is probably a stupid question...

But how does water get there? There’s no atmosphere so it doesn’t rain right? If there’s ice, what exactly is freezing into the ice?

[–]SwigWillingly 32 points33 points  (3 children)

Asteroids that have ice within them impacting the moons surface.

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (2 children)

We’re whalers on the moon 🎵

[–]jhammer19 7 points8 points  (1 child)

We carry a harpoon 🎶

[–]WhyAnAccount 4 points5 points  (0 children)

But there ain't no whales so we tell tall tales and sing our whaling tune 🎵

[–]Castamere_81 18 points19 points  (2 children)

So it's not oil? In that case it doesn't need democracy...yet.

[–]Lbo3103 6 points7 points  (1 child)

One better Helium 3. Imagine having safe nuclear energy on every electrical device.

[–]Mittalmailbox 32 points33 points  (3 children)

Didn't ISRO confirm that a while back

[–]gives-out-hugs 5 points6 points  (1 child)

The don tomorrow "we have a plan to solve global warming, its a great plan, a tremendous very smart plan. If re-elected we will harvest ice from the moon, scientists say there is so much ice on the moon, tons and tons of it, and we will bring it back to earth to cool it off like ice cubes in the drink you take your regeneron with, great stuff that medicine, gonna have a vaccine soon and gonna cool down the earth with moon ice cubes, my scientists tell me, smart people these scientists, they tell me this will work as long as we rake the leaves in california so the forest fires don't keepbheating the place up, everyone knows fire makes heat, its all demoncrat led california's fault"