The pits and caves they might lead to would make thermally stable sites for lunar exploration compared to areas on the Moon’s surface, which heat up to 260 F (about 127 C) during the day and cool to minus 280 F (about minus 173 C) at night. Moon exploration is part of NASA’s goal to explore and understand the unknown in space, to inspire and benefit humanity. Pits were first discovered on the Moon in 2009, and since then, scientists have wondered if they led to caves that could be explored or used as shelters. Pits or caves will also provide some protection from cosmic rays, solar radiation, and micrometeorites. “About 16 of the more than 200 pits are probably collapsed lava tubes,” said Tyler Horvath, a doctoral student in planetary sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, who led the new research, published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters . “Moon craters are a fascinating feature on the lunar surface,” said LRO project scientist Noah Petro of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Knowing that they create a stable thermal environment helps us paint these unique lunar features and the prospect of exploring them one day.” Lava tubes, also found on Earth, form when molten lava flows under a cold lava field or crust forms over a lava river, leaving a long, hollow tunnel. If the roof of a solidified lava tube collapses, it opens a pit that can lead to the rest of the cave-like tube. Two of the more prominent pits have visible ledges that clearly lead to caves or voids, and there is strong evidence that another ledge may also lead to a large cave. “Humans evolved by living in caves, and we may go back to living in caves when we live on the Moon,” said David Paige, co-author of the paper who leads the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment aboard LRO that made the temperature measurements used in the study. . Horvath processed data from Diviner – a thermal camera – to see if the temperature inside the cavities differed from that on the surface. Focusing on a roughly 328-foot (100-meter) cylindrical depression about the length and width of a football field in a region of the Moon known as Mare Tranquillitatis, Horvath and his colleagues used computer modeling to analyze the thermal properties of the rock and lunar dust and record crater temperatures over time. The results revealed that temperatures within the permanently shadowed areas of the pit fluctuate only slightly during the lunar day, remaining around 63 F or 17 C. If a cave extends from the pit floor, such as images taken by Lunar LRO’s Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera I suggest, would also have this relatively comfortable temperature. The team, which included UCLA planetary science professor David Page and Paul Hein of the University of Colorado Boulder, believes the shadow ridge is responsible for the constant temperature, limiting how hot things get during the day and preventing the heat to radiate away at night. A day on the Moon lasts about 15 Earth days, during which the surface is constantly bombarded by sunlight and is often hot enough to boil water. The brutally cold nights also last about 15 Earth days. The research was funded by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Project, Extended Mission 4. LRO is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. Launched on June 18, 2009, LRO has collected a wealth of data with its seven powerful instruments, making an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of the Moon. The Diviner was built and developed by the University of California, Los Angeles and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. NASA is returning to the Moon with commercial and international partners to expand the human presence in space and bring back new knowledge and opportunities. Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases published on EurekAlert! with contributing institutions or to use any information through the EurekAlert system.
