Chinese scientists have reportedly found signs of water on the Moon. China’s lunar lander detected traces of water ions, hydroxyl, in samples collected from “Moon rocks”. The uncrewed Chang’e 5 mission landed on the Moon in December 2020. It took samples of took samples of lunar soil and rocks.In a study published in Nature Communications this week, the scientists claimed that they had analysed traces of solidified lava retrieved by the mission from the plain known as the “Ocean of Storms”. Evidence of water was found in the form of hydroxyl trapped in a crystalline mineral known as apatite, which is a group of phosphate.

“For the first time in the world, the results of laboratory analysis of lunar return samples and spectral data from in-situ lunar surface surveys were used jointly to examine the presence, form and amount of ‘water’ in lunar samples,” reported space.com quoting co-author Li Chunlai, a planetary scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) as saying.