近日，中国科学院地质与地球物理研究所魏勇团队揭示了月球表面水的分布取决于纬度和风化层成熟度。2025年11月6日，《自然—地球科学》杂志发表了这一成果。
月球表面的水是追踪月球表面过程的关键因素，代表着未来月球探测的潜在阻力。从阿波罗号和月球号任务中获得的样本对水的含量和可能的来源提供了限制，但只代表了月球近侧的低纬度地区。关于月球背面的信息仅限于遥感观测，月球表面水的全球分布和起源仍然存在争议。
研究组对嫦娥六号返回的月球背面中纬度样品开展实验室分析，发现颗粒最表层具有极低δD值（低至-983‰）和高水含量（最高达1.7%），表明太阳风注入是其主要来源。这些水含量与嫦娥五号月球正面中纬度样品相当，但近乎阿波罗样品的两倍。红外反射光谱进一步揭示，尽管二者水含量随深度的变化趋势相似，但嫦娥六号整体样品表现出更强的OH/H2O吸收峰和更高的月壤成熟度。这些发现表明月表水分布强烈依赖纬度，而整体水含量还受月壤成熟度控制。该研究意味着高纬度区域的高成熟度月壤中可能蕴藏更丰富的月球表面水。
附：英文原文
Title: Distribution of lunar surface water dependent on latitude and regolith maturity
Author: Lin, Honglei, Chang, Rui, Xu, Rui, Yang, Wei, Tian, Heng-Ci, Tang, Hong, Li, Jinning, Hao, Jialong, Shan, Liyu, Zhang, Xiaojing, He, Huaiyu, He, Zhiping, Lin, Wei, Lin, Yangting, Wei, Yong
Issue&Volume: 2025-11-06
Abstract: Water on the surface of the Moon is a key factor in tracing lunar surface processes and represents a potential future resource for lunar exploration. Samples from the Apollo and Luna missions provide constraints on the content and possible origin of this water, but represent only low latitudes on the Moon’s nearside. Information about the lunar farside has been restricted to remote sensing observations and thus the global distribution and origin of lunar surface water are still debated. Here we performed laboratory analyses of samples from the lunar farside at mid-latitudes returned by the Chang’e-6 mission. We find that the samples have very low δD values (as low as 983‰) and high water contents (up to 1.7wt%) in the topmost layers of grains, indicating that solar-wind implantation is the primary source. The water contents are comparable to those reported for Chang’e-5 samples from mid-latitudes on the nearside, but nearly double those of Apollo samples. Infrared reflectance spectra further reveal that the bulk Chang’e-6 samples exhibit stronger OH/H2O features and higher maturity than Chang’e-5 samples, despite both showing similar water content profiles with depth. These findings suggest that the distribution of water on the lunar surface is strongly dependent on latitude, with the bulk water content also depending on regolith maturity. Our findings imply that lunar surface water may be more abundant in highly mature regolith in high-latitude regions.
DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01819-9
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01819-9