High-energy electrons located in a tail of plasma around the Earth are weathering the moon and, more excitingly, seem to have given rise to water across the lunar surface.
Li and team’s theory connects water on the moon to the magnetic bubble that surrounds the Earth, called the magnetosphere. The magnetosphere shields our planet from high-energy charged particles delivered from the sun in the solar wind.As the solar wind smacks into the magnetosphere, it deforms this magnetic shield, creating a long magnetic tail on the side of the Earth facing away from the sun, aka the nightside of the planet. This tail is aptly called the magnetotail.
When the moon orbits outside of the magnetotail, the lunar surface is pelted with solar wind — a process that has been shown to create small quantities of water when ionized hydrogen atoms from the solar wind combine with oxygen atoms on the moon's surface. However,"inside the magnetotail, there are almost no solar wind protons, and water formation was expected to drop to nearly zero," Li added.
In particular, Li found that radiation caused by high-energy electrons in the magnetotail exhibits similar effects to those caused by ions in the solar wind.