Water found in lunar impact probably came from comets

Volatiles, including hydrocarbons known to be present in comets, have been detected in lunar material kicked up by NASA's LCROSS mission (Image: T.A.Rector/I.P.Dell'Antonio

by Dana Mackenzie, Houston

The mystery of where the moon's water came from may soon be solved. Evidence from NASA's LCROSS mission suggests much of it was delivered by comets rather than forming on the surface through an interaction with the solar wind.

In October, the mission crashed two impactors – a spent rocket stage and a few minutes later, the LCROSS spacecraft itself – into a crater near the moon's south pole. The spacecraft snapped images and took spectra of lunar debris kicked up by the rocket's impact and found that it contained the unmistakable signs of water.

Previous missions have also found hints of lunar water but its source has not been clear. One idea is that it forms when hydrogen atoms from the solar wind latch onto oxygen atoms in the lunar soil, creating hydroxyl and water.

But now, the evidence is mounting in favour of an alternative explanation – comet impacts. The data was discussed this week at the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group meeting, a gathering of 160 lunar scientists in Houston, Texas.

'Dirty iceballs'

The first line of evidence comes from compounds that vaporise readily, called volatiles. LCROSS found spectral signs of volatiles containing carbon and hydrogen – likely methane and ethanol – as well as others such as ammonia and carbon dioxide. "It appears that we impacted into a very volatile-rich area," LCROSS principal scientist Tony Colaprete told the conference.

These compounds should have been mostly lost to space billions of years ago, when the moon coalesced from the debris of an impact between the Earth and a Mars-sized object. Water formed through an interaction with the solar wind would therefore be relatively pure – and free of volatiles.

But comets, which are thought to have been responsible for many of the moon's impact scars, are "dirty iceballs" known to contain volatiles such as methane. "If you can nail down the source of the water [on the moon], that could tell us a lot about the cometary history of the moon for the last couple of billion years," says Larry Taylor of the University of Tennessee.

High concentrations

The second line of evidence pointing to comets comes from the amount of water detected. The solar wind is expected to form water in minute amounts, amounting to concentrations of no more than 1 per cent in the lunar soil.

LCROSS team members are still analysing the data, but calculations suggest the concentration of water is higher than that. "The data are consistent with a total hydrogen content in the range of several per cent," says Colaprete.

Beyond their link to comets, volatiles generated excitement at the meeting because of their value as a resource for human spaceflight. While water is important for survival on the moon, it is the water's hydrogen that can be used as rocket propellant.

The possibility of finding compounds like ethanol and methane, which can be used as fuel directly, makes the economic case for returning astronauts to the moon even sweeter. "LCROSS has given us our ticket back to the moon," says Noah Petro of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

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