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Shortly after the moon formed from a debris disk 4 billion years ago, it released water vapor and others volatile gases in large quantities. The second event occurred about 3.5 billion years ago, when the volcanic activity on the moon peaked
In both cases, the release of these gases Volatiles would have created masses of liquid water on the surface. could stay in place for millions of years. There was probably a magnetic field that could have protected all life on the surface of the solar wind, a deadly flow of charged particles coming out of the sun.
Today, the moon does not have atmosphere but thin layer of gas, including sodium and potassium, which attempt to act as an atmosphere.
"It looks a lot like the moon was habitable at that time "billion years, study writer Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at Washington State University, said in a statement. "There could be germs that thrive in the water basins on the moon until the surface becomes dry and dead."
But what would life have looked like if it existed on the moon, and how was it born?
On Earth, the first traces of life date back to fossils of cyanobacteria ranging from 3.5 billion to 3.8 billion years old. Cyanobacteria are microscopic unicellular organisms that produce oxygen by photosynthesis.
The ingredients of life have have been found in meteorites before, and it is believed that meteorites could have helped bring water to the Earth at the beginning of its formation. The researchers in this study suggest that in the early days of our solar system, it is possible that meteorites that came into contact with the Earth and "exploded from its surface" could also have landed on the Moon.
It was common in the early solar system, when giant impacts and meteorite transfer between planets occurred, according to the study.
If so, meteorites could have carried microbes to the moon, and these microbes could have lived in puddles of surface water.
"If the liquid water and a significant atmosphere were present on the Moon at first for long periods of time, we think that the lunar surface would have been at least transiently habitable," Schulze-Makuch said in a statement. communicated.
Now the moon is essentially dead and dry, its surface covered with dust. But if future missions revisit the moon, researchers believe that recovery of samples in areas dating from the peak of volcanic activity could provide evidence of water or life.
Experiments simulating the conditions on the moon 3 billion to 4 billion years ago could also be performed in laboratories on Earth or the International Space Station to see if microbes could survive, according to the report. ;study.
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