The amount of water present in the Moon might have been overestimated by scientists studying lunar rock samples, according to a new study.
The study was published in the journal Science.
Research was led by Jeremy Boyce and colleagues from the University of California-Los Angeles. They were able to create a computer model to predict how mineral apatite would have crystallized from cooling bodies of lunar magma early in the Moon's history.
Simulations showed that the hydrogen-rich apatite crystals observed in a few lunar rock samples might not have formed within a water-rich environment, which is what was originally predicted, according to the study.
"The mineral apatite is the most widely used method for estimating the amount of water in lunar rocks, but it cannot be trusted," said Boyce. "Our new results show that there is not as much water in lunar magma as apatite would have us believe."
Scientists believed the Moon was almost entirely devoid of water for a number of decades.
Scientists originally assumed that information obtained from a smaller sample of apatite could predict the base water content of a large body of magma, or even an entire Moon, but Boyce's study indicates apatite can be deceptive.
High water content within lunar apatite results from a quirk in the crystallization process, not a water-rich lunar environment, according to Boyce.
When water is exists as molten rock cools, apatite can form by combining hydrogen atoms into crystal structure.
Hydrogen is included in the crystallizing mineral when fluorine and chlorine, apatite's "preferred" building blocks, have been mostly exhausted, according to the study.
"Early-forming apatite is so fluorine-rich that it vacuums all the fluorine out of the magma, followed by chlorine," Boyce said. "Apatite that forms later doesn't see any fluorine or chlorine and becomes hydrogen-rich because it has no choice."
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