A joint research team of Assistant Professor Masahiro Kayama of Tohoku University Interdisciplinary Science Frontier Research Institute and Kobe University, Kyoto University, Hiroshima University, Ocean Research and Development Organization, and High-Brightness Photon Science Research Center has teamed up with moganite, a mineral that cannot be produced from lunar meteorites without water. Was detected.The collaborative research team believes that it is highly possible that water is buried as ice in the underground, which is a few meters below the surface of the earth, which is extremely cold.
According to Tohoku University, moganite is a mineral whose main component is silicon dioxide, like quartz. When silicon dissolved in alkaline water is placed under high temperature and high pressure, silicon is combined with oxygen and produced at the same time as the water evaporates. NS.Although it is widely produced on the earth, which is rich in water, it was thought that it does not exist in celestial bodies other than the earth.
When 13 lunar meteorites found in Northwest Africa and other areas were examined by laser analysis, Kayama et al. Detected moganite in one of them called NWA2727.The collaborative team believes that water was supplied by a water-rich celestial body colliding with the Moon's Procellarum Basin, which has a shadow pattern that looks like a rabbit.
Water evaporates on the surface of the moon at a high temperature of over 100 degrees Celsius during the day, but it is said that ice remains because it becomes ultra-low temperature several meters underground.Ice reserves are expected to reach 1 liters per cubic meter of rock, suggesting the possible presence of large amounts of ice beneath the Moon.
Paper information:[Science Advances] Discovery of moganite in a lunar meteorite as a trace of H2O ice in the Moon's regolith