As in the series Silent Sea available on Netflix, Chinese scientists have just found water on the surface of the Moon.
You might not have noticed it on Netflix, but as of December 24, the South Korean TV series Silent Sea has been available. Why are we telling you about this series in an article dealing with the Moon? Because the two are closely linked. Indeed, in the fiction of the scientists leave on our satellite in an old human base, of which all the occupants died at the time of the intrigue.
There they will eventually discover water on the surface of the celestial object. This precious liquid, essential to life, would have been locked in lunar rocks. A science fiction theory that might be worth taking more seriously. Indeed, many scientific discoveries of recent years tend to show that water is indeed present on the surface of our night star.
NASA and now CNSA announcements
In October 2020, it was NASA which in a special press conference, something quite unusual for the agency, announced with great fanfare that water had been discovered in liquid form on the Moon. Neither one nor two, the press then seized on this information, distorting it at the same time.
Because the discoveries of NASA were still only preliminary. It was necessary that on the ground, space missions confirm the theories and other analyzes of the American space agency. Finally, after more than a year of waiting for the scientific community, it is finally, ironically, the Chinese competitor (CNSA) which with its Chang’e 5 probe provided NASA with the precious answer.
Yes. There is indeed liquid water on the Moon. The discovery of the rover is today the most tangible proof demonstrating the presence of water on the surface of the Moon. But if we want to remain pessimistic, it is always possible to say that the molecules discovered on the surface of our natural satellite are only hydroxyl (OH), a particle also discovered in quantity on the Moon and which is very close to the famous H2O so much sought after.
How did the water get on the moon?
Now that the presence of water on the surface of the Moon is no longer lacking (or almost), the big question is how this liquid got there. According to the scientists of the CNSA who deliver their conclusions in an article published in the journal Science Advances, the water would have arrived on the Moon because of the solar wind.
In fact, hydrogen particles made the trip to the heart of this stellar wind before coming aground on the Moon. Once deposited on the surface of our satellite, the hydrogen encountered oxygen there, thus forming water (H2O) and hydroxyl (OH) molecules. This idea had already been developed by NASA researchers in 2018 and in 2020 when the US space agency found traces of liquid water on the Moon.
