NASA-funded lunar research has yielded evidence of water locked in mineral grains on the surface of the Moon from an unknown source deep beneath the surface. The Gibbous Moon (11 days old). Image Credit & Copyright: Robert Gendler Using data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument aboard the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists [continue reading]
Traces of water have been detected within the crystalline structure of mineral samples from the lunar highland upper crust obtained during the Apollo missions, according to a University of Michigan researcher and his colleagues. Called the “Genesis Rock,” this lunar sample of unbrecciated anorthosite collected during the Apollo 15 mission was thought to be [continue reading]
Three years ago University of Tennessee, Knoxville, researchers helped to discover water on the surface of the Moon. Now, they are piecing together the origin of that water: solar wind. This microscope image shows a grain of agglutinate glass similar to those analyzed in the lunar surface-water study reported in Nature Geoscience. The specimen [continue reading]
Volatiles, or easily evaporated materials, have colored Vesta’s surface in a broad swath around its equator. This has been reported in two new papers based on observations from the low-altitude mapping orbit of the Dawn mission. Asteroid Vesta. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA Pothole-like features mark some of the asteroid’s surface where the volatiles, likely water, released [continue reading]