How was water discovered on Earth's moon?

The story below, about scant amounts of water found across the lunar surface, was published in September, 2009: This story was updated at 10:49 p.m. EDT on the date of initial publication. read more

Finally, the Deep Impact spacecraft, as part of its extended EPOXI mission and at the request of the M3 team, made infrared detections of water and hydroxyl as part of a calibration exercise during several close approaches of the Earth-Moon system en route to its planned flyby of comet 103P/Hartley 2 in November 2010. read more

Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called "unambiguous evidence" of water across the surface of the moon. read more

And in 2010, scientists looked closer at other collected moon rocks and found more signatures of water in a mineral called apatite. That’s when geologists began suspecting that the moon holds hidden reservoirs locked in its rocks. read more