The Moon Has Been Hiding Water From Us For Who Knows How Long

The Moon Has Been Hiding Water From Us For Who Knows How Long

I’ve always kind of liked the moon. And have felt an instinct toward protection when friends and colleagues have attacked her in print. What did the moon ever do to us, I thought, except look pretty and give us tides to surf on and write nice faux-reggae songs about? Well, it turns out that the less credulous among us may have been right not to trust her seductive blue glow after all. The moon has been holding out on us for years, hoarding vast supplies of valuable water beneath her apparently dry, desert-like surface. Scientists started to suspect something was up recently. But now, new analysis of volcanic moon rock brought back by astronauts 40 years ago has yielded evidence of far more water than we’d ever imagined!

The analysis, reported in Science, has looked at pockets of volcanic material locked within tiny glass beads. It found 100 times more water in the beads than has been measured before, and suggests that the Moon once held a Caribbean Sea-sized volume of water.

The Caribbean Sea?! What the…

All right. Listen moon, I’ve run out patience. It’s hot here on Earth. 80-something degrees today in the city. And it’s only going to get hotter. We’re thirsty. And we don’t have enough water. Make with the goods in some kind of heavenly lunar rain that will keep our reservoirs filled for eternity or there’s gonna be trouble. Don’t push us any more. We’ll come get the water ourselves if we have to. And no one wants that.