Science
Scientists just found the 'front door' to a massive cave on the moon
The Moon's surface is pockmarked with more than 200 known pits where rocks and regolith collapsed into depths unknown. New research has found that one of those pits, in Mare Tranquillitatis, collapsed into a lava tube and made an underground cave conduit accessible from the lunar surface.
"We found a sort of front door to enter the subsurface," said Leonardo Carrer, a planetary scientist at the University of Trento, Italy, and first author on the research. Its access to the otherwise shielded lunar subsurface makes this pit a tantalizing site for future human and robotic exploration and could provide new insight into lunar volcanism.
Reflections from below
The Moon was once covered in seas of magma that eventually cooled into the dark basaltic maria visible today. Lunar scientists have long thought that like Earth, the Moon could host other volcanic features such as lava tubes.
Lava tubes form when a lava stream cools and forms a hardened exterior shell. Hot lava continues to flow through it like sludge in a pipe. Eventually, lava flows out of the tube and leaves a hollow conduit that could connect to emptied magma chambers or caves.
RELATED: Volcanic eruptions on the moon happened much more recently than we thought
"We had a lot of evidence on the surface of the Moon suggesting that lunar lava tubes could have existed," Carrer said. Lunar pits, elliptical craters that formed not from an impact but from the surface collapsing into an underground void, have been some of the most compelling evidence for these tubes. More than 200 of these pits have been imaged on the Moon's surface, and scientists speculate that they may be skylights into cave conduits, which happens on Earth when the top of a cave collapses and exposes it to the surface.
Carrer and his colleagues, including fellow University of Trento planetary scientist Lorenzo Bruzzone, wanted to know whether it was possible to map a hidden cave using orbital synthetic aperture radar (SAR) instruments. They first tested this method at two terrestrial cave systems in Lanzarote, Spain, and the Well of Barhout in Yemen, which are both planetary analogs. They used the SAR data to create 3D reconstructions of the two terrestrial cave systems near their entrances.
-
Science22h ago
Catastrophic collision between Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies may not happen after all, new study hints
-
Science1d ago
Elon Musk said he's 'definitely going to be dead' before humans go to Mars — and you probably will be too
-
Science1d ago
Mars May Have Far More Water Than We Thought
-
Science2d ago
Space photo of the week: James Webb telescope catches baby stars roaring to life
-
Science3d ago
Do opposites really attract in relationships?
-
Science3d ago
New ISS images showcase auroras, moon and space station in glorious photos
-
Science3d ago
How will the trapped Boeing Starliner astronauts perceive time after 6 months in space?
-
Science3d ago
Auroras headed to the US again in aftermath of gargantuan 'X-class' solar flare