Thanks to scientific research, the world knows a fair amount of information about the Moon. Humanity knows that there’s no liquid water nor air to breathe on the cosmic object that revolves around our planet every day. But even so, nature has a little ace up its sleeve, and it doesn’t hesitate to pull it out.
Scientists were astonished when they found haematite on the Moon due to the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Chandrayaan-1 orbiter. Haematite is an oxidized form of iron that shouldn’t exist without the presence of both water and air.
Haematite from Earth?
Planetary scientist Shuai Li from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, declared:
When I examined the M3 data at the polar regions, I found some spectral features and patterns are different from those we see at the lower latitudes or the Apollo samples,
I was curious whether it is possible that there are water-rock reactions on the Moon. After months of investigation, I figured out I was seeing the signature of haematite.
As scientists are keep wondering how did the haematite get there, this component was also mostly found on the bright side of the Moon – the one that we see from Earth. Compared to many other cosmic objects, including Earth, the Moon is not revolving around its axis.
The involved scientists believe that traces of water had been identified and linked to impacts. Water ice could even be mixed in with lunar regolith. As more haematite exists on the lunar nearside, there’s a chance that it may be related to Earth. It all leads to the idea that Earth’s atmospheric oxygen could be the major oxidant that produces haematite.
The clues, along with others, lead to the idea that over several billion years, haematite can develop itself on the Moon.
Our natural satellite has an important contribution to the development of life on Earth as we know it, and of course, further studies are recommended.
The new research has been published in Science Advances.
