China confirms there is water on the Moon

Confirmed by testing on Earth, Chinese scientists report signs that water exists in rocks collected by the Chang'e 5 lander on the Moon.

The Chang'e-5 probe collects samples on the Moon.

They shared their findings in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications.

The Chang'e 5 lander landed on the Moon in December 2020, collecting about 1.7kg of Moon rock and soil, known as regolith.

The ship also uses onboard instruments to measure the chemical composition of the samples it collects.

This data allowed the Chinese researchers to suggest that water molecules may be present at around 120 parts per million (ppm) in some moon rocks and 180 ppm in others.

Now, a research team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences has confirmed the presence of water in the samples by studying the items that Chang'e-5 brought back to Earth.

The soil analyzed by the scientists turned out to be relatively dry with a water level of just 28.5 parts per million. However, they also found that the mineral apatite was among the samples with an H2O content of 179 ppm, consistent with previous projections.

Telescopic and satellite observations have long led scientists to suspect that water exists on the Moon, in the form of hydroxyl or H2O in the rocks.

It is hoped that future astronauts residing on Earth's satellites will be able to extract molecular oxygen and hydrogen from the environment to make their own pure water and oxygen.