Water on the Moon

月球上的水 - Water on the Moon

For all you space buffs who like to keep track of where the water is, it looks like you can add our very own moon to your list. Because according to a trio of papers appearing in the journal Science, the lunar surface is wetter than we realized. 
对于所有的喜欢追寻水的踪迹的空间爱好者，似乎可以把我们自己的月球加入你的目录。因为根据一系列发表在Science上的文章，月球表面比我们想象中要湿润。
Forty years ago, Apollo astronauts brought a bunch of moon rocks back home. For the most part those samples showed no traces of water whatsoever. Those that seemed even the slightest bit moist were thought to have been contaminated by water from Earth—because the containers they were stored in turned out to be leaky. 
四十年前，阿波罗计划的宇航员从月球表面带回了很多月球岩石。这些样本大部分都显示没有水的踪迹。那些最潮湿的石头都被认为是在返回地球过程中被水分污染——因为容器被证明有泄漏。
But now scientists say they’ve spotted water right on the moon’s surface. Using instruments on three different spacecraft, the scientists detected the chemical signature of good old H2O. And they think the water springs from the moon itself. The lunar soil is nearly 50 percent oxygen, and the scientists think that hydrogen comes from the solar wind that pounds the moon’s surface. 
但是现在科学家说他们在月球的表面就检出了水。使用在三个不同航天器的仪器，科学家们探测到了H2O的化学特征。他们认为这些水来自月球本身。月球土壤中含有50%的氧，科学家们认为氢来自太阳风对月球表面的作用。
Put the two together and you get wet. Not too wet, of course. There’s probably only about a quart of water in every ton of lunar soil. That’s dryer than the Sahara. But wetter than we thought.
把这两种说法放在一起，你就知道月球表面是湿的。当然不是非常湿润。大约每吨月球土壤含有一夸脱的水。这比撒哈拉还要干。但是比我们想象中更湿润。