Lunar scientists believe they’ve found the hottest spots on the Moon, as well as some 200 Goldilocks areas that are consistently close to San Francisco’s average temperature.
The moon has wild temperature fluctuations, with parts of the moon heat up to 260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 degrees Celsius) during the day and drop to minus 280 F (minus 173 C) at night. But the 200 newly analyzed shadowy lunar pits are still 63 F (17 C), meaning they’re perfect for humans to shelter from extreme temperatures. They could also protect astronauts from the dangers of the solar wind, micrometeorites and cosmic rays. Some of these pits can lead to equally hot caves.
These partially shadowed pits and dark caves could be ideal for a moon base, scientists say.
“Surviving the lunar night is incredibly difficult because it requires a lot of energy, but being in these pits and caves removes that requirement almost entirely,” said Tyler Horvath, a doctoral student in planetary sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. and lead author. on NASA-funded research published online July 8 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (opens in a new tab)said Live Science.
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It’s a revelation that’s been going on for more than a decade. The first pit on the lunar surface was discovered in 2009 by the Kaguya orbiter (formerly SELENE, for SELenological and ENgineering Explorer) of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). However, this new work was done using a thermal imaging camera, the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment, on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
Of the 200 pits discovered, two to three have overhangs that lead to a cave, while 16 appear to be “”skylights”” to collapsed lava tubes. On Earth, lava tubes are hollow caves found near the surface in volcanic regions, including Kazumura Cave in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and La Cueva del Viento in Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
“As the lava flowed the top of it solidified while the lava continued to flow below, in some places the lava drains completely leaving a lava tube,” said said Horvath. If a lava tube collapses, a pit is created which acts as a “skylight” to a long cavity.
This same process happened billions of years ago when massive volcanic events on the moon created the famous dark lava fields on the lunar surface called “maria”, which means seas in Latin.
“These pits likely formed due to small impacts punching a hole in the ceiling of the lava tube or seismic activity weakening the ceiling,” Horvath said.
In the new study, the researchers analyzed the temperatures in a cylindrical pit about 328 feet (100 meters) deep in the Mare Tranquillitatis – the Sea of Tranquility – near the moon’s equator. The team’s findings revealed that although the floor of the pit is illuminated at lunar noon, it is probably the hottest place on the entire surface of our natural satellite, at around 300 F (149 C); meanwhile, temperatures in the permanently shaded parts of the pit fluctuate only slightly from hooded terrestrial temperatures.
The pit is relatively close to where two of NASA’s Apollo missions landed. “The Tranquillitatis Trench is actually the same distance from the Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 landing sites, about 375 kilometers [233 miles] away,” Horvath said. “If we end up going there, it would be amazing to see the bookends of the Apollo program and how well it has been preserved.
It’s a possibility. The study was originally intended to help inform tentative plans for a Lunar diver mission (opens in a new tab) proposed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2020, which would lower a rover into the Tranquillitatis Trench to explore any existing caves. “This rover would be able to study lava flow layers in the pit walls that were imaged by LRO, helping us better understand the moon’s past history and evolution,” Horvath said. “There’s not much left to study at these pits from orbit, but there are plenty of opportunities if we go straight there.”
Apollo 11’s “Tranquility Base” may yet have an underground sequel.
Originally posted on Live Science.