It has long been established that the moon contains significant amounts of ice and water, including frozen water found on the lunar surface last year. Now, a new study suggests that the ice could be billions of years old and come from different sources.

The study, published in the scientific journal Icarus, suggests that some ice could be almost as old as the moon itself. Other ice deposits could be much younger, perhaps put there by comets and asteroids, or even underground volcanic activity.

We quantify the amount of available cold-trapping surface area that is occupied by water ice in order to examine the relationship between the patchiness of ice within each crater and the age of each host crater, the studys abstract states.

The majority of surface ice is contained in old craters [greater than 3.1 billion years], where the majority of cold-trapping area on the pole exists.

Just because the crater is old doesnt mean that the ice within it is also that old too, but in this case, theres reason to believe the ice is indeed old, the researchers said in a statement.

The scientists, led by Brown University researcher Ariel Deutsch, used data from NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (which was recently used to make a 3-D map of the moon) to come up with their conclusions.

There have been models of bombardment through time showing that ice starts to concentrate with depth. So if you have a surface layer thats old, youd expect more underneath, Deutsch said.

The newer, smaller craters, which also hold ice, were a surprise, she added. There hadnt really been any observations of ice in younger cold traps before.

The age of the ice could have implications for space travel, including NASAs return to the moon in 2024 and the exploration of deep space.

When we think about sending humans back to the moon for long-term exploration, we need to know what resources are there that we can count on and we currently dont know, Brown University professor and the studys co-author, Jim Head, said in the statement.

Studies like this one help us make predictions about where we need to go to answer those questions.

A study published in August theorized that there may be more ice water on Earths natural satellite and Mercury than previously thought. Until recently, it was believed that the water was trapped in cold traps at the moons poles, but a 2018 discovery found that there is frozen water on the lunar surface.

Water was discovered on the moon in 2009.

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Ice on the moon may be billions of years old, new study suggests - New York Post