NASA-funded scientists have discovered shaded locations inside craters on the moon that always hover around 63 degrees Fahrenheit (about 17 degrees Celsius), using data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft with computer modeling.
The craters and caverns that would lead to them would make there are thermally stable sites for lunar exploration, compared to regions on the moon, which get as hot as 260 degrees Fahrenheit (about 127 degrees Celsius) during the day and cool to 280 degrees Fahrenheit (about 173 at night). ).
Exploring the moon is part of NASA’s goal to explore and understand the unknown in space, to inspire and benefit humanity.
The craters were first discovered on the moon in 2009, and since then, scientists have wondered whether they led to caves that could be explored or used as shelters. The craters or caves would also provide some protection from cosmic rays, solar radiation and micrometeorites.
“About 16 of the more than 200 craters may be collapsed lava tubes,” says Tyler Horvath, a doctoral student in planetary sciences at UCLA who led the new research, which was recently published in Geophysical Research Letters.
“Lunar craters are a wonderful feature on the surface of the moon, and knowing that they create a stable thermal environment helps us paint a picture of these unique lunar features and the prospect of one day exploring them,” said Explorer Lunar Project scientist Noah Petro of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Lava tubes, also found on Earth, form when molten lava flows under a field of cooling lava or a crust forms over a river of lava, leaving a long, hollow tunnel. Cave-like.
Two of the most prominent pits have visible cavities that clearly lead to caves or voids, and there is strong evidence that another hiatus may also lead to a large cave.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera photographed Marius Hills three times, each time with completely different lighting.
The central panel, with the sun rising above it, gives scientists a great view of the floor of the Marius Hills crater.
“Humans evolved while living in caves, and we may go back to caves when we live on the moon,” says David Page, one of the paper’s authors who led the lunar radiometer experiment.
Horvath processed the data from the thermal camera, and to see if the temperature inside the craters differed from that on the surface, he focused on a cylindrical depression approximately 328 feet (100 meters) long and nearly the width of a football field in a region of the moon known as the “Bahr” silence.”
Horvath and colleagues used computer modeling to analyze the thermal properties of lunar rocks and dust and plot crater temperatures over time.
The results revealed that temperatures within the crater’s permanently shaded bands fluctuate only slightly throughout the lunar day, remaining at around 63 F, or 17 C.
The research team, which included UCLA professors of planetary sciences David Page and Paul Heine of the University of Colorado Boulder, believes that drooping shadows are responsible for the constant temperature, keeping things from getting hot during the day and preventing heat from radiating away at night.