How Does Water End Up On the Moon?
NASA announced Monday that it’s discovered more water on the Moon than previously thought, particularly on sunlit faces. But how does it get there in the first place?
While some H2O likely arrives via meteor impacts and accumulates over time, a more stable infusion of water appears to come from a chemical process that converts streams of charged particles - specifically protons - emanating from the Sun into hydrogen after interacting with electrons in the lunar surface. From there the hydrogen (H) can readily combine with the abundant oxygen (O) in the silica sediment to produce a component of water, which is surprisingly common throughout the solar system!
NASA
The following articles discuss further:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a14555/water-worlds-in-our-solar-system/
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