A study has been conducted that proves that hydrogen on the Moon could have come from the solar wind.

American scientists have found a source of water on the earth's satellite

Hydrogen particles in lunar soil were discovered by scientists at the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). Nature reports this. Moreover, this substance turned out to be precisely in those samples that were exposed to the solar wind.

Photo: nasa.gov

The solar wind is a stream of ionized particles — helium-hydrogen plasma flowing into the surrounding outer space. It is one of the main components of the interplanetary medium.

For the study, samples of lunar soil brought by astronauts from the Moon during the Apollo space program were used. In one of them, number 79221, scientists identified solar wind hydrogen concentrated in small spheres — vesicles contained in calcium phosphate minerals such as apatite and merrillite.

To examine invisible vesicles in lunar soil samples , the scientists used a transmission electron microscope. It shines through the rock with a beam of electrons passing through it.

– It was known before that there is hydrogen on the Moon, since the solar wind easily irradiates its surface. If you remember, it consists precisely of hydrogen nuclei (protons). In this regard, there is even a hypothesis where water could have come from on the initially dry Moon, or more precisely, the huge amount of water ice contained in the polar regions. But not everything is so simple. Currently, along with the version that the solar wind forms water by interacting with oxidized (containing bound oxygen) surface rocks, there is another. It is associated with the fall of comets consisting of water ice to the Moon.