Scientists in China have discovered water molecules trapped in lunar rocks, upending past assumptions that the moon’s surface is dry.
The rock samples, collected from the moon’s surface and brought back to Earth by China’s Chang’e 5 mission in 2020, contain crystals filled with “hydrated molecules,” according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Samples brought back by the U.S. Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s revealed no traces of water, leading scientists to believe that much of the lunar soil was completely dry. But later remote sensing from lunar satellites has detected water on the moon, especially near its colder poles.
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