Chinese scientists have used a brand new yet shockingly simple technique to extract water from lunar soil.
As per South China Morning Post, the method was tested out on dirt samples from Moon that were brought back during China’s Chang’e 5 mission in 2020.
The mission had been a breakthrough itself because it had been the first to bring lunar soil back to Earth in 44 long years!
Now, the country has found that not only can base-settlers on Moon reproduce potable water from its soil, but they can use byproduct from the extraction process to even build their bases.
As written in The Innovation journal, when analyzing those samples, a team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences found them containing “high concentrations of hydrogen plus oxygen.”
Heating to temperatures of over 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, the elements present inside produced water vapor!
Interestingly, another thing noted was that the moon soil itself melted after having reached this temperature threshold and iron as well as ceramic glass is produced additionally.
The said water vapor discovery enabled the group to learn more about those lunar samples than what was previously known.
For example, some hydrogen-rich minerals that were found in it were seemingly created from “billions of years of exposure to solar wind.”
