Lunar Water

Instruments aboard several spacecraft have detected smatterings of water and related molecules mixed with the powdery soil on the surface of the Moon. This image shows a small section of the lunar surface (left), and regions with water (blue) and hydroxyl (red) molecules (right). Hydroxyl consists of one hydrogen atom and one oxygen atom. The amounts of water are minute, but are more than planetary scientists had expected to find. The quantity of water (in the form of individual molecules or small grains of ice) is greatest around the Moon's poles, where observations by earlier spacecraft had hinted at the presence of water ice in permanently shadowed craters. [ISRO/NASA/JPL/USGS/Brown Univ.]