Water on the moon came from the sun

Dear readers and followers,

on Monday october 6th, scientifs published really interesting work about the origin of water on Moon. Water trapped in rocks on the moon's surface probably originated mostly from streams of energetic particles blasted from the sun and not from cosmic impacts from comets, researchers say.

For years, scientists argued over whether the moon harbored water or not. Recent findings confirmed that water does exist on the moon, although its surface remains drier than any desert on Earth. +NASA officials have suggested this water could one day help support colonies on the moon and missions to Mars and beyond.

It remained uncertain where all of this water came from. One possibility is that it was delivered by impacts from carbonaceous chondrites, meteorites that can be rich in water, and from comets. Another is that water formed on the moon after exposure to the solar wind, streams of high-energy particles from the sun. Atoms of hydrogen in the solar wind can react with oxygen trapped in moon rocks to form water.

To help find out where lunar water came from, scientists analyzed 45 microscopic grains of dust that astronauts on NASA's Apollo 16 and 17 missions brought from the moon. They focused on levels of different isotopes of elements within these dust grains. Isotopes differ from each other in how many neutrons there are in their atoms — for instance, normal hydrogen atoms do not have any neutrons, while atoms of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, each possess one neutron. Water can be made with deuterium as well as with normal hydrogen.

The sun is naturally low in deuterium because its nuclear reactions quickly consume the isotope. All other bodies in the solar system possess relatively high levels of deuterium, remnants that existed in the nebula of gas and dust that gave birth to the solar system. By analyzing the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen in the water in moon dust, the researchers could deduce whether the water originated from the sun or elsewhere, such as chondrites.

One complicating factor in this analysis is that cosmic rays — high-energy particles from deep space — can generate deuterium when they slam into the moon. To account for how cosmic rays can influence deuterium levels on the moon, the scientists also looked at levels of lithium-6, an isotope of lithium that cosmic rays would also generate when they hit the moon. By examining the ratio of lithium-6 to normal lithium, the researchers deduced how often cosmic rays struck the moon and generated deuterium as well as lithium-6.

The researchers expected to find water from chondrites in the interiors of the lunar dust grains and water from both chondrites and the solar wind in the exteriors or rims of these grains. Surprisingly, the water in both the interiors and exteriors of these dust grains apparently originated mainly from the solar wind.

These findings suggest that any water that cosmic impacts bring to the moon is not retained much. At most, an average of 15 percent of the hydrogen in lunar soil may come from chondritic water, the researchers said.

Source: journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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MAVEN delivered the first observations of Mars atmosphere

Dear readers and followers,

the NASA’s spacecraft called MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) has obtained its first observations of the extended upper atmosphere surrounding Mars. Piling on to the good news from Mars this week, the US spacecraft Maven sent home its first ultraviolet images from Mars. While they may not be flashy, these images will help determine the composition and variability of the upper atmosphere, and investigate the mystery when the water escaped.

The Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument obtained these false-color images eight hours after the successful completion of Mars orbit insertion by the spacecraft at 10:24 p.m. (EDT) on Sunday, September 21th. 

Credit image: NASA

The MAVEN spacecraft has been sent with success by the space rocket Atlas 5 last November 2013. Its travel to Mars took 10 months.

The image shows the planet from an altitude of 36500 km in three ultraviolet wavelength bands:

• Blue shows the ultraviolet light from the sun scattered from atomic hydrogen gas in an extended cloud that goes to thousands of kilometers above the planet’s surface.
• Green shows a different wavelength of ultraviolet light that is primarily sunlight reflected off of atomic oxygen, showing the smaller oxygen cloud. 
• Red shows ultraviolet sunlight reflected from the planet’s surface; the bright spot in the lower right is light reflected either from polar ice or clouds.

The oxygen gas is held close to the planet by Mars’ gravity, while lighter hydrogen gas is present to higher altitudes and extends past the edges of the image. These gases derive from the breakdown of water and carbon dioxide in Mars’ atmosphere. Over the course of its one-Earth-year primary science mission, MAVEN observations like these will be used to determine the loss rate of hydrogen and oxygen from the Martian atmosphere. 

Tracking the spacial and temporal variation of these gases, along with carbon, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and ionized carbon dioxide, will help scientists better understand what processes are driving the atmosphere's composition. The particularly interesting part for the water history of the planet involves measuring the ratio between light water and heavy water: hydrogen (121.567 nm) and deuterium (121.533 nm). 

That's a task that requires a high level of precision, and has been successfully accomplished for the lower atmosphere on Mars before, but never for the upper atmosphere where gas loss is actually taking place. These observations will allow us to determine the amount of water that has escaped from the planet over time.

Source: NASA

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NASA discovers an ancient lake on Mars

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after many months on Mars, the Curiosity rover reveals its major discovery which could change the space field research. Actually, the space rover has revealed the evidence of an ancient lake with water that could plausibly be described as drinkable. This validates the first analyses performed and published few months ago: the first scoop of soil analysed by the analytic suite in the belly of martian rover reveals that fine materials on the surface of the planet contain several percent water by weight.

Credits: +NASA 

This discovery might emphasize the probability of an ancient life on the red planet; “If we put microbes from Earth and put them in this lake on Mars, would they survive? Would they survive and thrive? And the answer is yes,” said John Grotzinger, a Caltech planetary geologist who is the chief scientist of the Curiosity rover mission. 

As described in the science paper, "A Habitable Fluvio-Lacustrine Environment at Yellowknife Bay, Gale Crater, Mars", the aqueous environment found on the red planet was characterized by neutral pH, low salinity, and variable redox states of both iron and sulfur species. C, H, O, S, N, and P were measured directly as key biogenic elements, and by inference P is assumed to have been available. These results highlight the biological viability of fluvial-lacustrine environments in the post-Noachian history of Mars.

We should have more details in the next days and months, so stay tuned

Curiosity confirms the Martian origin of some meteors on Earth

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After the discovery of of water on Mars, few weeks ago, the Curiosity rover is still performing this work. Actually, while the NASA was out due to the shutdown during 2 weekend, the +NASA 's rover analysed the Martian atmosphere. These analyses confirm that some meteorites that have dropped to Earth really are from the Red Planet.

A key new measurement of the inert gas argon in Mars' atmosphere by the laboratory on-board the rover, provides the most definitive proof yet of the origin of Mars meteorites while at the same time giving a way to rule out Martian origin of other meteorites.

Credits: +NASA / +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

The Curiosity measurements do not directly measure the current rate of atmospheric escape, but NASA's next mission to Mars, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN), is designed to do so. This mission is being prepared at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a launch around November 18th 2013.

Sources: NASA

Water on Mars discovered by Curiosity

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few weeks after its first anniversary on the red planet, the NASA's rover Curiosity is still working.  The first scoop of soil analysed by the analytic suite in the belly of martian rover reveals that fine materials on the surface of the planet contain several percent water by weight. The scientists used the ChemCam, CheMin instruments, the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite aboard NASA’s Curiosity Rover to perform the analysis.

Credits: +NASA / +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

About 2 percent of the soil on the surface of Mars is made up of water, which is great resource, and interesting scientifically. The sample also released significant carbon dioxide,oxygen and sulfur compounds when heated.

The result were published in Science as one article in a five-paper special section on the curiosity mission.

Water on the Moon found

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a new study, published on the journal Nature Geoscience, has revealed the probably presence of water on the Moon when it first formed 4.5 billion year ago.

The new water signatures discovered in the center peak of Bullialdus crater on the Moon have the form of hydroxyl molecules. Hydroxyls are molecules consisting of an oxygen atom connected to a hydrogen atom. The pairing is often seen as a substructure of the water molecule.

Credits: +NASA / +Arizona State University 

The scientists have detected magnetic water on the surface of the Moon. This type of water  is originating from deep within the Moon's interior. These findings has been performed using data from +NASA 's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) carried on-board India's Chandrayann-1 lunar orbiter.

Sources: +Universe Today and +Astro Watch 

There was some floodwaters on Mars

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The spacecraft launch by +European Space Agency, ESA, called Mars Express has revealed from great pictures that floodwater occurred on Mars 3 billions years ago. The picture shows the mosaic, which features the spectacular Kasei Valles.

Credits: +European Space Agency, ESA 

The spacecraft has been send by ESA June 2nd 2003 in order to orbit around the red planet. This mission is dedicated to the orbital study of the interior, subsurface, surface and atmosphere, and environment of the planet Mars.

The total initial Mars Express budget excluding the lander was €150 million; however, 10 years after its liftoff, Mars Express continues to send some data from Mars to scientific.

Same Water on Earth and Moon

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the water inside the Moon’s mantle came from primitive meteorites. The Moon is thought to have formed from a disc of debris left when a giant object hit the Earth 4.5 billion years ago, very early in Earth’s history. Scientists have long assumed that the heat from an impact of that size would cause hydrogen and other volatile elements to boil off into space, meaning the Moon must have started off completely dry as depicted on the following video .... or not finally ...

However, new research finds, the same source thought to have supplied most of the water on Earth. The findings raise new questions and lead to rethink the models about the forming of the Moon. 

Actually, +NASA  spacecraft and new research based on samples from the Apollo missions have revealed that the Moon has water both on its surface and below. In order to find the origin of the Moon’s water, scientists looked at melt inclusions found in samples brought back from the Apollo missions. Melt inclusions are tiny dots of volcanic glass trapped within crystals called olivine. The crystals prevent water escaping during an eruption and enable researchers to get an idea of what the inside of the Moon is like. 

The researches were performed by Erik Hauri of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, James Van Orman of Case Western Reserve University, and Malcolm Rutherford from Brown and have been published.

The researchers say, that there are some important processes we don’t yet understand about how planets and satellites are formed: “Our work suggests that even highly volatile elements may not be lost completely during a giant impact,” . “We need to go back to the drawing board and discover more about what giant impacts do, and we also need a better handle on volatile inventories in the Moon.”

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