Scientists Announced the Moon Is Packed With Hidden Water

Bright Side

Big news about the Moon: scientists have found out it’s hiding way more water than we ever thought! This water isn’t in big puddles or lakes but trapped in tiny glass beads and within the Moon’s soil. This discovery is a game-changer because water means we could support future Moon bases—think astronauts drinking Moon water or splitting it to make rocket fuel.  Scientists used advanced tech to find it, and now they're figuring out how to collect and use it. Who knows? This might be the key to kickstarting space exploration like never before!

Transcript

00:01It's so close to us, at least in terms of space,

00:04but there's still so much we don't know about the Moon yet.

00:08For example, Chinese researchers have collected soil samples from the Moon

00:12and found out there might be billions of tiny glass spheres on the lunar surface.

00:17What's really cool is that they might hold enormous amounts of water.

00:23These tiny spheres form when meteorites hit the Moon at crazy speeds,

00:28sometimes at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour.

00:32When that happens, a strong explosion sends bits of the Moon's crust flying into the air like popcorn.

00:40As these chunks of crust cool down, they create little glass beads

00:44that look like tiny glittering spheres.

00:47These beads are so small that they're like crumbs sprinkled over the Moon's surface.

00:52Scientists call them impact glass.

00:55And it turns out, the soil on the Moon is holding a secret ingredient that can make water, oxygen.

01:03So, these tiny glass balls are like little capsules with oxygen inside.

01:08There's a special type of wind called solar wind, and it's made of protons and electrons.

01:14When protons hit the capsules, they mix with the oxygen inside and finally make water.

01:20But the most amazing part is that some of these glass balls with water inside

01:27get hidden under a layer of the Moon's dust called regolith.

01:31So, if we go on a mission to the Moon, we'll have hidden reservoirs of water underground.

01:36It's as if someone has prepared some canned food for us to survive.

01:42Because you can't drink that water directly from these glass beads,

01:45you're supposed to collect them and then boil them in an oven to extract the water.

01:50When they cool, they release vapor, so you'll have regular liquid water in a bottle.

01:55That way, astronauts on their missions will be able to stay longer up there,

01:59considering these secret stashes.

02:02And the coolest thing is that these glass beads are very common on the Moon.

02:07They're spread from the poles to the equator,

02:10which means there might be enough water even for generations that might come to live there one day.

02:18There are other spots where we can find water in space, too.

02:22For example, scientists found an extremely big cloud of water vapor

02:27that's 12 billion light years away from us.

02:30Not within reach, of course, but it's still good to know.

02:33And we're talking about something bigger than we can imagine.

02:36It's thought the cloud contains at least 140 trillion times the amount of water

02:43in all the oceans and seas on our home planet.

02:46Imagine swimming or scuba diving there.

02:50It's like taking a dip in a giant water balloon that's traveling through space.

02:54I mean, you wouldn't have a way out considering the amount of water in there,

02:58but hey, at least the view would be magnificent.

03:01Water is actually everywhere across our solar system.

03:07It's mostly in the shape of atmospheric gas or ice,

03:11and sometimes even in its liquid form.

03:14And there are probably many water worlds in our galaxy, too.

03:17Scientists from the University of Copenhagen have discovered exciting new evidence

03:22about how planets form in our solar system and beyond.

03:26Their computer models have confirmed the interesting theory of pebble accretion,

03:31which means that planets form from tiny pieces of ice and dust.

03:36This theory is based on the observation of disks around young stars

03:41that are made up of pebbles that come in several hundred Earth masses.

03:45As these pebbles collide and clump together,

03:48they form protoplanets and, eventually, planets.

03:52What's even more exciting is water could be an important ingredient in this planet's making.

03:58It also means that the water may not have come to Earth by chance,

04:02for instance, via icy comets hitting our home planet.

04:06Instead, maybe it was there from the very beginning.

04:09Perhaps planets in our neighborhood, like Mars and Venus, formed with water as well.

04:17Scientists also say we shouldn't assume we're a special case just because we have water.

04:22There could be many planets all over our Milky Way galaxy as big as Earth that have water, too.

04:28That means there could be many worlds in our galaxy with continents and oceans,

04:33which could also mean there is a great deal of life out there waiting to be discovered.

04:40But just because there's water somewhere,

04:43it doesn't mean that place would be a good spot for an interstellar summer vacation for future generations.

04:49Water on many planets is probably embedded in rock or fills underground oceans.

04:56Researchers have checked more than 40 exoplanets we know about.

05:00They're all smaller than Neptune and located around something we call red dwarf stars.

05:06These make up 80% of all stars we're familiar with in our galaxy.

05:11They're cooler than our Sun and also the smallest type of hydrogen-burning stars.

05:17And there could be more planets with enormous amounts of water than we thought.

05:23Plus, this water can take up to half of the total mass of these planets.

05:27Scientists know this because they've been studying the density of these exoplanets.

05:33They have realized they're too light to be made entirely out of rock.

05:40I've mentioned Venus before.

05:42Today, it's a hot, rocky planet a bit smaller than Earth,

05:46with a dry atmosphere and only some traces of water vapor.

05:50It's also very poor in oxygen.

05:53But in its early stages, the planet may have been a completely different world,

05:57with liquid water and even clouds.

05:59Which means it's possible there used to be life.

06:03What if Venus used to be similar to Earth, with oceans and moderate temperatures?

06:10It would be great if it stayed that way,

06:13because these seem like good conditions to develop life.

06:16So we'd probably be writing letters to some of our space friends from there,

06:20or visiting them already.

06:22But the scenario went in a different direction for Venus,

06:26about 700 million years ago or so.

06:28The planet got so hot, it lost all of its oxygen.

06:32That's why it wasn't able to form liquid water on its surface.

06:37Instead, it developed a thick atmosphere, made up of carbon dioxide.

06:42Which made this world even hotter than Mercury,

06:45even though it's twice as far from the Sun.

06:48Even icy comets pelting it couldn't bring water back to its surface.

06:53We can't do it either in some artificial way.

06:56It would be like trying to grow a delicate flower in a desert.

07:00No matter how much you water it, if the conditions are too dry and harsh,

07:05the flower won't survive.

07:07But some people thought the water in the atmosphere of our close neighbor

07:11could be enough for developing life.

07:14Plus, scientists have discovered there is a compound called phosphate

07:18that's often associated with living organisms on Earth.

07:22Maybe in the past, this was enough.

07:25Today, the amount of water on Venus is so small,

07:29even our toughest microbes that are extremely tolerant to droughts

07:32wouldn't be able to stay alive there.

07:36Phosphine is still a cool discovery worth investigating,

07:39but not something that tells us there could be life on Venus.

07:44Jupiter might be a more likely option for that.

07:47The Galileo probe flew through the atmosphere of this magnificent gas giant

07:52to measure the temperature and water activity.

07:55It found out there was enough water for life to exist in the planet's clouds,

08:00but sadly, there are not enough nutrients there.

08:03Plus, there's too much ultraviolet radiation,

08:05so most organisms wouldn't actually be able to survive there.

08:10And everyone knows Europa, one of Jupiter's moons.

08:14It's that very place in our solar system that has the biggest chances to support life.

08:19Its icy crust probably hides an ocean underneath.

08:23And because of Jupiter's gravity that affects Europa,

08:26the ocean is not frozen, but remains liquid.

08:29The ocean might be warm under that icy crust,

08:32probably thanks to hydrothermal vents.

08:35Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons,

08:39probably has even higher chances to host life than Europa.

08:43And it's one of the best candidates to have a beautiful, warm, and salty ocean beneath the surface.

08:49It has the coolest ice geysers that catapult into space about 1,000 tons of water every hour,

08:56together with salt, organic molecules, and some other materials.

09:00Aunty Norman,

09:05々 Sebastian Tom,

09:07I'm the Ranger.

09:08Got a whole page ofopolity.

09:09Just Jetと思елен from us.

09:11We'll see you right behind.

09:12I'll see you in the next one.

09:13That's ready.

09:16Okay, so that is진.

09:18Let's go next to your house all the way it is this dagawans-

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