The obvious answer seems to be No. because during a day

on the Moon, which lasts 2 earth weeks,

the temperature on the lunar surface

gets up to 123 degrees celsius,

which would be enough to boil away any water

if the Moon had an atmosphere like Earth,

which it doesn't.

And the reason that it doesn't

is because the Moon's gravity is weak,

just a sixth of Earth's gravity, which means

it can't hold onto light fast moving

molecules like water. Anything going

faster than 2.4 kilometers per second

the Moon's escape velocity is gone.

But that might sound pretty quick, but at any

given temperature there are always a

small number of molecules going

significantly faster than the average.

On the Moon

these molecules flap into space and then

other molecules take their place until

all the light fast moving molecules

are gone.

Plus, since the Moon has a very weak

magnetic field, there's little to protect

the lunar surface from the solar wind.

That's the stream of charged particles

coming from the Sun. These particles can

effectively blast molecules from the

surface of the Moon into space.

In fact that's how Mars lost most of its atmosphere.

So in short, if the Moon ever

had any water, it should be long gone by now.

And this appeared to be confirmed by

the Moon landings. Rock samples brought

back by Apollo astronauts

contained virtually no hydrated minerals.

Some water was detected but it was assumed

just to be terrestrial contamination

rather than actual Moon water, because

seals on some of the sample-return

containers were damaged by the gritty moondust.

But in 2009 a very different

picture emerged, when scientists

intentionally crashed part of a rocket

into the surface of the Moon.

It was going two point five kilometers per second

on impact, making a crater 25 meters wide

and 4 meters deep.

That injected 10,000 tons of material

with half of it making high enough to be lit

by the Sun. That allowed cameras on an

orbiting spacecraft, to look for the

emission lines of water in the dust.

And what did they find ?

The water emission lines were bright.

Scientists estimated that five

point six percent the mass of the

objective debris was water.

but how is this possible? Where did the

water come from and hadn't remain

on the Moon?

Well strangely enough, there are actually

three different sources of lunar water.

To understand the first source, you just

have to look at where they crashed that

rocket into theMmoon. Now it's a

misconception that the Moon has

a dark side.

Although the same side always faces earth,

all sides of the Moon do receive

sunlight.

However, at the poles there are some

craters which due to their location and depth,

are always in shade. They're called

but permanently shadowed regions.

Now since they never see the Sun,

these craters are some of the coldest places

in the whole solar system, colder than

the surface of Pluto. They can reach

negative 249 celcius. And it is here that

scientists decided to crash that piece

of rocket. Since the permanently shadowed

regions maintain such a consistently low

temperature, they act as cold traps

places where volatiles like water

remained frozen as ice.

But, where the water come from in the first place?

Well, from water containing comets

and asteroids that have struck the Moon over time.

Any water molecules that found

their way to the permanently shadowed regions

would be trapped there. Forever.

as ice but this is not the only source

of water on the Moon.

In a lunar samples from Apollo 15 and 17,

scientists found tiny glass beads. These beads were formed

back when the Moon was still

volcanically active. Fire fountains

launch droplets of lava into space, where

they cooled rapidly and then fell back

to the surface. In 2007 these beads were

sliced in half and tested for water.

The results showed significant amount of

water with concentrations highest in the

middle of the beads, and this indicates

that the water must have been trapped there

during the initial eruption, rather

than leaching in due to contamination

once those beads were back on earth.

Now, this water came from the interior of

the Moon. So the Moon must have contained

water to begin with, which kind of makes sense

considering the Moon is likely a

piece of Earth that broke off billions

of years ago in an impact with a mars-sized

body.

The third and final source of water

on the Moon is : Water created on the Moon

surface from the reaction of oxygen and hydrogen.

Now, the source of oxygen is easy.

Oxygen makes up

45 percent of the lunar surface

mostly bounded oxide mineral. But where

do you get the free hydrogen? The answer

is in the solar wind, which is constantly

bombarding the Moon surface with protons.

These can react with oxygen, to form

hydroxide, and ultimately water.

This water can then drift over the surface of

the Moon until either flys off into space,

or it lands in the cold traps and becomes ice.

So there is water on the Moon.

And this is important because

it means that future missions can take

advantage of this valuable resource.

Not only for Moon colonists to drink and

grow crops, but also for processing into

rocket fuel. If you can make your own

rocket fuel on the Moon, that

dramatically reduces the challenges and

cost of space travel. For a long time we

used to think the Moon was completely dry.

But now we know that hypothesis is all wet.

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