Despite not having actually been to the moon in around 50 years, we’re still finding out new things about Earth’s only natural satellite from the samples brought back by the Apollo missions. Now, researchers with the US Naval Research Laboratory who were studying those very samples have found hydrogen within them, something which could prove to be a huge discovery
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00:03 Despite not having actually been to the moon in around 50 years, we're still finding out
00:07 new things about Earth's only natural satellite from the samples brought back by the Apollo
00:11 missions. And now researchers with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, who were studying
00:15 those very samples, have found hydrogen within them, something which could prove to be a huge
00:19 discovery. One of the leading issues with long-term space travel involves keeping humans
00:23 hydrated while they're off-world. Every pound of weight that is rocketed into space needs to be
00:28 carefully accounted for, and water is extremely dense and heavy, meaning finding it in space is
00:33 imperative. But now that hydrogen has been discovered in lunar regolith, experts say it
00:37 could be made rather than found. So now you might be asking, where did that hydrogen-infused rock on
00:42 the moon come from? They say rocks from the moon that were created when it still had volcanic
00:46 activity have trapped hydrogen from solar winds. What's more, the fact that the element is being
00:50 trapped in detectable quantities and has remained there for so many years points to a potential
00:55 tappable source. And when combined with lunar regolith-trapped oxygen, with the right technology,
01:00 this could be a potential water source for future moon-dwelling humans.