PARIS: Scientists said Monday they have discovered water inside tiny beads of glass scattered across the Moon, suggesting that one day it could be extracted and used by the “explorers of tomorrow”.

The Moon was long believed to be dry, but over the last few decades several missions have shown there is water both on the surface and trapped inside minerals.

Mahesh Anand, a professor of planetary science and exploration at the UK’s Open University, told AFP that water molecules could be seen “hopping over the lunar surface” when it was sunny.

“But we didn’t know where exactly it was coming from,” said Anand, a co-author of a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The study, carried out by a team led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the glass beads are “probably the dominant reservoir involved in the lunar surface water cycle”.