![]() “Humans evolved living in caves, and to caves we might return when we live on the moon,” said Paige, who leads the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment.ĭiviner has been mapping the moon continuously since 2009, producing NASA’s second largest planetary dataset and providing the most detailed and comprehensive thermal measurements of any object in our solar system, including Earth. The pits or caves would also offer some protection from cosmic rays, solar radiation and micrometeorites. ![]() (NASA currently has no plans to establish an exploration base camp or habitations on the moon.)īuilding bases in the shadowed parts of these pits allows scientists to focus on other challenges, like growing food, providing oxygen for astronauts, gathering resources for experiments and expanding the base. Solar power - NASA’s most common form of power generation - doesn’t work at night, after all. ![]() Inventing heating and cooling equipment that can operate under th ese conditions and producing enough energy to power it nonstop could prove an insurmountable barrier to lunar exploration or habitation. Unimaginably cold nights also last about 15 Earth days. “Because the Tranquillitatis pit is the closest to the lunar equator, the illuminated floor at noon is probably the hottest place on the entire moon,” said Horvath.Ī day on the moon lasts nearly 15 Earth days, during which the surface is constantly bombarded by sunlight and is frequently hot enough to boil water. Meanwhile, the sunbaked part of the pit floor hits daytime temperatures close to 300 degrees, some 40 degrees hotter than the moon’s surface. The research team, which also included UCLA professor of planetary science David Paige and Paul Hayne of the University of Colorado Boulder, believes the shadowing overhang is responsible for the steady temperature, limiting how hot things get during the day and preventing heat from radiating away at night. The moon has similar tunnels, which are left behind after molten lava flows beneath the surface. If a cave extends from the bottom of the pit, as images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera suggest, it too would have this relatively comfortable temperature.Ī good place for a base? Scientists predict that some lunar pits lead to lava tubes like the one seen here in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The results, recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, revealed that temperatures within the permanently shadowed reaches of the pit fluctuate only slightly throughout the lunar day, remaining at around 63 degrees. Horvath processed images from the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment - a thermal camera and one of six instruments on NASA’s robotic Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter - to find out if the temperature within the pits diverged from those on the surface.įocusing on a roughly cylindrical 100-meter–deep depression about the length and width of a football field in an area of the moon known as the Mare Tranquillitatis, Horvath and his colleagues used computer modeling to analyze the thermal properties of the rock and lunar dust and to chart the pit’s temperatures over a period of time. ![]() If the ceiling of a solidified lava tube collapses, it opens a pit that can lead into the rest of the cavelike tube. Lava tubes, also found on Earth, form when molten lava flows beneath a field of cooled lava or a crust forms over a river of lava, leaving a long, hollow tunnel. Two of the most prominent pits have visible overhangs that clearly lead to some sort of cave or void, and there is strong evidence that another’s overhang may also lead to a large cave. About 16 of the more than 200 pits are probably collapsed lava tubes, said Tyler Horvath, a UCLA doctoral student in planetary science, who led the new research. ![]() 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. The pits, and caves to which they may lead, would make safer, more thermally stable base camps for lunar exploration and long-term habitation than the rest of the moon’s surface, which heats up to 260 degrees during the day and drops to 280 degrees below zero at night. A team led by planetary scientists at UCLA has discovered shady locations within pits on the moon that always hover around a comfortable 63 degrees Fahrenheit. UCLA researchers have discovered that lunar pits and caves could provide stable temperatures for human habitation.įuture human explorers on the moon might have 99 problems but staying warm or cool won’t be one. To conduct long-term lunar research, bases would have to protect people and equipment from the damaging effects of the heat and cold.
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