This time last year, NASA’s LCROSS mission sent a probe crashing into a lunar crater, in hopes of kicking up evidence of water on the moon. According to some new data, the scientists got a lot more than they bargained for–the crash kicked up high concentrations of silver and mercury, as well.
Scientists have found trace amounts of those elements on lunar rocks sent back to earth in the past, but nothing so far has suggested that they are so prevalent on the lunar surface. Scientists believe that the existence of the elements offers a clue as to how water first arrived on the moon.
“The silver is like a tracer,” Peter Schultz, the leader of the study told National Geographic. “It tells us where [moon water] probably came from, and I think it’s telling us that it came from comets and asteroids colliding with the moon.”
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