Study Suggests Sun Provides Water to the Moon

James Greenwood, research associate professor of earth and environmental sciences and interim faculty director of the McNair Program, spoke to Earth Magazine about new evidence that the lunar surface is rich with water, and that much of that water comes from the sun. Researchers from the University of Tennessee were able to determine that the sun is the source of lunar water by showing that there is no deuterium, a heavier isotope of hydrogen, in the water. Greenwood says that deuterium values as low as the ones found are “only consistent with solar wind implantation,” though he points out that there are still other reservoirs of water on the moon.