On the possibility of clathrate hydrates on the Moon

Abstract

One of the most important inferences of the Lunar Prospector mission data was the existence of subsurface water ice in the permanently shadowed craters near both lunar poles [ Feldman et al. , 1998]. We propose and substantiate an alternative explanation that hydrogen can exist in the shallow lunar subsurface in the form of clathrate hydrates: CH 4 · 6H 2 O and/or CO 2 · 6H 2 O.