China moon samples reveal water molecules in groundbreaking discovery, scientists say

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As Chinese scientists analyzed the soil samples that their lunar probe brought back from the moon, they realized something groundbreaking: There was water found along with minerals in the soil.

Finding water on the moon is, on its own, nothing new. NASA and Indian spacecraft have spotted what they believe to be water on the moon’s surface, and Chinese scientists last year found water trapped in glass beads strewn across the moon.

But this latest discovery, scientists say, is the first time water in its molecular form, H2O, has been found in physical samples – and, importantly, it was retrieved from a part of the moon where they’d previously thought water in that form couldn’t exist.

Researchers closely inspected samples collected by China’s Chang’e-5 probe, which landed on the lunar surface in 2020, and found a “prismatic, plate-like transparent crystal” – roughly the width of a human hair – that was in fact an “unknown lunar mineral” dubbed ULM-1, according to the study, which published July 16 in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The ULM-1 crystal (with the chemical formula (NH4)MgCl3·6H2O) are made up of roughly 41% water, with bits of ammonia that keep that H2O molecules stable despite wild temperature swings on the moon, according to the study.

This type of water could be a potential “resource for lunar habitation,” the scientists wrote in their study.

The discovery is the latest finding in China’s larger push to become a dominant space power – with sweeping ambitions such as building a research base on the moon. The study was hailed by excited