'Lunar interior wetter than believed'

AHMEDABAD: Forty-four years after man set foot on the moon, the earth's satellite is still throwing up mysteries. Recently, water was discovered on the moon.

Amit Sarbadhikari, a member of the PLANEX Group at Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, showed how re-investigation of lunar samples, especially lunar rock-15555, dispelled myths about the moon's surface and its insides.

Sarbadhikari showed how varying levels of water in volcanic glass beads, olivine-hosted melt inclusions (olivine is magnesium iron silicate), and accessory phase apatite, shows a wetter lunar interior than previously believed. Apatites are phosphate minerals, with high concentrations of hydroxyl (OH−), fluoride and chloride ions in the crystal.

"Initial chemical analyses of lunar rocks in the Apollo era turned up virtually no evidence of lunar water. More recent discoveries of water and other volatile substances in lunar volcanic material indicate that the early evolution of the lunar mantle was influenced by the nature and composition of the different volatile substances in it," says Sarbadhikari.

Sarbadhikari says, "The concentration of volatiles over the entire moon is uncertain. This has shown variations in many of the analyzed findings. I have studied apatite and melt inclusions in a lunar mare basalt, revealing interesting facts on the uneven distribution of volatiles in the insides of the moon."

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