How to Drink Lunar Volcano Water

Early and frequent volcanic eruptions on the Moon may have led to the formation of thick ice sheets which are now buried under layers of regolith.

IMAGE: Scientists believe that the moon’s snakelike Schroeter’s Valley was created by lava flowing over the surface. CREDIT: NASA Johnson

Let’s look way back in the past to the early days of the Moon when volcanoes erupted with geologic frequency. Those volcanoes covered the surface in what we now see as dark maria, mostly smooth plains of basalt. But it’s possible that those eruptions also left a huge boon for future astronauts — sheets of ice under the lunar poles that could be hundreds of meters thick.

A new study in The Planetary Science Journal presents the results of complex computer simulations that attempted to recreate conditions on the Moon about two to four billion years ago. Scientists found that tens of thousands of volcanoes gave off massive amounts of water vapor, and then that vapor settled onto the surface as ice. The team estimates that almost half of the water from the volcanic eruptions condensed, which is an impressive amount. Had humans been alive at the time, they might have seen a frosty Moon with actual polar ice caps. Lead author Andrew Wilcoski notes: The atmospheres escaped over about 1,000 years, so there was plenty of time for ice to form.