Study Finds Glass Beads May Be A Promising Source Of Water On The Moon – SlashGear

That’s a very small amount, but considering that glass beads are abundant in the lunar soil, the research team estimates that the moon could be harboring approximately 600 trillion pounds of water. That’s nowhere close to the water abundance on Earth, but it’s still a sizeable amount. The biggest challenge, however, would be extracting water from these glass beads. For that, astronauts on the moon will have to heat it in order to extract and store it for consumption and other critically important tasks.

The team also noticed that the traces of water found in these glass beads are extremely scarce in deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen. Since solar winds are also low in deuterium and the sun happens to harbor the other isotope of hydrogen called protium, the team concluded that water trapped in these glass beads comes from solar winds. When hydrogen atoms carried by solar winds react with oxygen and oxygen-based materials that form the glass beads, water is produced.

Another major implication of the discovery is that glass beads could be a key reservoir of water trapped in the form of ice in polar regions of celestial bodies, which permanently live in a shadow. And if the moon is any indication, water trapped in these beads should act as the buffer between water that is released into space and the rest of which is replenished back to the surface in a cyclic fashion.