Though NASA's Lunar Prospector appeared to have struck ice in 1999, its findings proved inconclusive. Had they been supported, scientists predicted that any water would have come from gases emitted by meteorites striking the moon.
With so little reason to believe in native lunar water, said Saal, it took three years to secure the minimal funding necessary to take another look at the Apollo pebbles, gathered between 1969 and 1972.
But a high-powered imaging technique known as secondary ion mass spectrometry revealed a wealth of so-called volatile compounds, among them fluorine, chlorine, sulfur, carbon dioxide -- and water.
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