The moon has been ‘sneaky’ to suck up Earth’s water for billions of years

The distribution of ice on the surface of the South Pole (left) and North Pole – Photo: NASA

Hydrogen and oxygen ions, which escape from Earth’s upper atmosphere and then combine on the Moon, could create up to 3,500km³ of permafrost or subsurface water, scientists say.

Research published in the journal Scientific Reports shows that there are 5 days per month where hydrogen and oxygen ions are drawn to the surface by the Moon as the planet passes through the tail of the Earth’s magnetosphere. The magnetosphere is the region of space surrounding a planet that is controlled by the planet’s magnetic field.

The Earth’s magnetosphere is a teardrop-shaped bubble that surrounds the Earth. As the Sun’s wind ignites this bubble, a segment of the Earth’s magnetic field line (the magnetic field line in space) is disrupted. This causes some hydrogen and oxygen ions to escape from the atmosphere. The magnetic field lines are only tied to this planet at one end.

When the Moon interferes with the tail of the Earth’s magnetosphere, some of the fractured magnetic field lines will reconnect permanently, leading to the sudden release of hydrogen and oxygen ions from the Earth’s atmosphere. back to this planet.

“It’s like the Moon is in a shower – a shower of water ions that return to Earth, which will be sucked into the surface of the Sun,” said geophysicist Gunther Kletetschka of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. moon”.

The researchers think that because the Moon does not have a magnetosphere, when the ions are attracted to the surface of the Moon, it creates a layer of permafrost. Some of that ice, through many geological processes, was pushed below the surface and turned into liquid water.

Gravitational data from NASA’s Lunar Orbiter is used to take a close look at the Moon’s polar regions and some large craters. The team found an anomaly of fractures in the rock that are capable of causing permafrost erosion.

Under the influence of volcanoes, on the Moon formed extensions and structural faults. Thus appeared large reservoirs of water under the surface of this planet.

Calculations of the Moon’s crust by scientists suggest that several thousand square kilometers of water may have accumulated this way under the Moon’s surface over the past 3.5 billion years.

While it’s more likely that the water on the Moon came from a number of sources – including hydrogen and oxygen reactions triggered by the Solar wind, scientists think a lot of it may have come from the atmosphere of the Moon. The earth.