There may be more water on the moon than we thought

Scientists at Brown University have found evidence that the moon could contain more water than previously thought.

How they found it: Using images of the moon's surface, researchers measured the amount of water trapped in volcanic deposits across the surface of the moon by looking at sunlight reflected from the rocks.

"It's not much [water], maybe a couple hundreds parts per million, but the size of these deposits are huge, you have a lot of material to work with," Ralph Milliken, the lead author of the study, told Popular Science. "Theoretically, we could extract water from these deposits for human exploration."

Why it matters: If — and that is a big if right now — water on the moon could be extracted, it could be used as a pitstop on the way to Mars. Elon Musk suggested something similar recently in calling for a base for the moon.