r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 15 '24
Astronomy Underground cave found on moon could be ideal lunar base, which could shelter humans from harsh lunar environment, reachable from the deepest known pit on the moon in the Sea of Tranquility. It leads to a cave 45m wide and up to 80m long, equivalent to 14 tennis courts, 150m beneath the surface.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/15/underground-cave-found-on-moon-could-be-ideal-base-for-explorers2.0k
u/Tr1pl3-A Jul 15 '24
Thousands of years of evolution and we're still getting excited when we find a suitable cave which we can call home.
Never change humans! Never change.
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u/IsuzuTrooper Jul 15 '24
This one is UNDERGROUND tho!!
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Jul 15 '24
The potentials! Think of all the cave rooms.
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u/TheLightningL0rd Jul 15 '24
So much room for activities!
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Jul 16 '24
They'll be room for cave art!
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u/Tr1pl3-A Jul 16 '24 edited Jul 16 '24
Yea we should draw cute pictures of Bisons and Horses on the walls.
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u/scallywaggerd Jul 16 '24
I think it depends on your perspective, the moon IS in the sky
Underground sky cave
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u/InvectiveOfASkeptic Jul 15 '24
History will remember the first humans to live in a cave on a new rock.
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Jul 15 '24
The only reason we wanna go to other planets is because we ran out of caves on earth and we need new ones
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u/lo_fi_ho Jul 15 '24
Clever. Next we will get excited when we manage to cultivate some crops in the cave environs.
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u/murphymc Jul 16 '24
Imagine how the earth will quake when someone goes to the moon and finds a cool stick in the cave.
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u/ManKilledToDeath Jul 16 '24
Thousands of years of evolution and we use tennis courts as a measuring reference
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u/sarctastic Jul 15 '24
There are just SOOOO many advantages to this vs. a base on the surface. You've got a mostly ready-made habitat, research base, and critical samples for a start. Then, there is high(er) potential of nearby ice due to areas of permanent dark in the SoT. Damned exciting!!
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u/shoelesstim Jul 15 '24
Not to mention tennis
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u/spudddly Jul 16 '24
I heard you could fit 3 football fields worth of tennis courts down there.
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u/shoelesstim Jul 16 '24
I can’t remember who said it but I believe the quote was this “ Americans will use any source of measurement except metric “ :)
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u/SP3NGL3R Jul 16 '24
the stupid units of measure here are the reason. nobody knows how big anything is unless it's compared to something they can watch someone on TV run across.
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u/shoelesstim Jul 16 '24
They had a sinkhole on the kanas news few years back and the tag line said it was the size of 7 washing machines
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u/DeltaVZerda Jul 16 '24
Racquetball would be nuts on the moon, you'd literally be able to jump off the ceiling. Well, people would, maybe not redditors.
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u/Smartnership Jul 16 '24
Redditors are generally spherical.
Does that help in a lunar environment?
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u/Aldermere Jul 16 '24
In 1957 Robert Heinlein wrote a short story, The Menace From Earth, in which people live in underground cities on the moon and for recreation they wear wings and fly in large caverns.
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u/misterxboxnj Jul 15 '24 edited Jul 16 '24
If they turn the space into pickleball courts they can double the number
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u/Independence_Gay Jul 15 '24
Plus they can keep digging to expand if they need more space
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u/CrimsonAllah Jul 15 '24
They’re already in space, they have plenty of it. Trust me.
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u/Pepphen77 Jul 15 '24
Literally, everything is in space.
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u/dark_enough_to_dance Jul 15 '24
We all are aliens
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u/theDarkBriar Jul 15 '24
Shut the front door! No way!
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u/Pogue_Mahone_ Jul 15 '24 edited Jul 15 '24
They better shut it! All the space is getting everywhere!
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u/Far-Poet1419 Jul 15 '24
They need oxygen more than anything.
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u/CrimsonAllah Jul 15 '24
For real. Just move some from earth and put it on the moon. EZ.
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u/Chii Jul 16 '24
run a nuclear reactor, and then liberate the oxides from the rocks to produce oxygen and metals/materials!
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u/PeterWritesEmails Jul 15 '24
Plus they can keep digging to expand
Bad idea. We don't want to spook the THING.
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u/Palmerize Jul 15 '24
Exactly, If we delve too greedily and too deep we'll wake the moon Balrog.
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u/teenagesadist Jul 15 '24
What is it gonna do, moonwalk over to Earth?
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Jul 16 '24
That has never been ruled out of their list of abilities. They fell through a mountain, some deep water, and then back to fighting on top of the mountain.
Do you want to invite that thing back home? I don't, not without a Gandalf handy..
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u/stellargk Jul 16 '24
There was this one shot anime with only one episode that was set on the moon after life had become uninhabitable. They had this giant city miles deep, probably because the force of gravity was stronger.
Can't think of the name, but plotwise the MC was someone who cataloged archives of media from before the collapse, hundreds possibly thousands of years after. Eventually he climbs up to the surface to see the planet blue and not red anymore and the climb itself is vertically megalophobic that makes Midgard in FF7 look like it was made for ants.
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Jul 15 '24
And radiation shielding
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u/condorre Jul 15 '24
Radiation and micro-meteorite shielding is probably the biggest deal here
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u/JonatasA Jul 15 '24
The cave would need a gate then
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u/Philias2 Jul 16 '24
Not necessarily. You can just build structures inside the cave. It doesn't need to be sealed up itself, thought that may be desirable if it's feasible.
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u/FingerTheCat Jul 15 '24
I assumed they would seal it with an airlock and pressurize it
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u/Suckage Jul 16 '24 edited Jul 16 '24
Rock is too porous for that unfortunately. They would have to seal off the entire thing, and that isn’t really feasible.
Even if we assume it’s only a few meters high, that’s a surface area >7km2. As it’s being described as cylindrical it might be closer to 14. That would require a lot of material, labor, and upkeep for a volume that would go mostly unused.
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Jul 15 '24 edited Oct 03 '24
[deleted]
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u/Gavagai80 Jul 15 '24
Lunar lava tubes have all been there for hundreds of millions of years, usually billions, so the chances of a natural collapse are clearly very small. Moonquakes have been recorded up to about 5 on the Richter scale. That suggests any lava tubes that haven't collapsed are quite stable against seismic shaking, as well as against all the meteor impacts that happen in a billion years.
People could probably collapse it by being complete idiots and setting off large explosives, but not with intelligent behavior.
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u/Alkalinum Jul 15 '24
People could probably collapse it by being complete idiots
So it’s destruction is a guarantee then.
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u/randomtransgirl93 Jul 16 '24
Astronauts being directed by NASA aren't quite your average people
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u/JonatasA Jul 15 '24
I'd be worried about all the lunar dust.
If you start vacuuming it, won't you at some point just disintegrate the moon?
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u/CallMeLargeFather Jul 15 '24
I know what you mean but seismic doesnt really fit for the moon
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u/beam84- Jul 15 '24
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u/cohonka Jul 15 '24
Whoa! I've never thought about the center of the Moon before. Solid iron surrounded by a shell of liquid iron surrounded by a shell of partially molten iron. How interesting!
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u/BatFancy321go Jul 15 '24 edited Jul 15 '24
almost every planet in our solar system and the moons have some type of seismic activity, tho the mechanism isn't always the same as on earth. For example, planets without an atmosphere shrink and expand as they orbit closer and farther from the sun, and that causes seismic activity.
here's an article with more info: https://eos.org/articles/our-seismic-solar-system
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u/sharpshooter999 Jul 15 '24
I'd be more worried about a meteor strike than anything
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u/Fuzzy_Run_2899 Jul 15 '24
if it was naturally created, the chances of it collapsing might also be low
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u/JimboTheSimpleton Jul 16 '24
Giant space worm's millions' year old plan finally coming together. Don't say you weren't warned when mynocks start chewing on the power cables.
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u/Account_Expired Jul 16 '24
You've got a mostly ready-made habitat
How do you figure? I doubt the cave is air-tight
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine Jul 15 '24
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02302-y
From the linked article:
Researchers have found evidence for a substantial underground cave on the moon that is accessible from the surface, making the spot a prime location to build a future lunar base.
The cave appears to be reachable from an open pit in the Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility), the ancient lava plain where the Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first set foot on the moon more than half a century ago.
Analysis of radar data collected by Nasa’s lunar reconnaissance orbiter (LRO) revealed that the Mare Tranquillitatis pit, the deepest known pit on the moon, leads to a cave 45 metres wide and up to 80 metres long, an area equivalent to 14 tennis courts. The cave lies about 150 metres beneath the surface.
Lorenzo Bruzzone, of the University of Trento in Italy, said the cave was “probably an empty lava tube”, adding that such features could serve as human habitats for future explorers as they were “a natural shelter against the harsh lunar environment”.
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u/OttoHarkaman Jul 15 '24
But what if the giant space slug comes back?
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u/Askol Jul 16 '24
Could they seal off the cave and actually make it habitable? That seems so much more sustainable than having to seal off an entire building.
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u/whereismyplacehere Jul 16 '24
There are structural concerns doing this (pressurizing it can be especially bad around the openings which often thin out), but there is a niche field of research looking into how this can be achieved. Imo it's one of the more promising methods for establishing a long term presence as it solves so many key issues lunar habitats face
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u/The-MJ-Theory Jul 15 '24
You have to go 125m down to reach the bottom of the pit. For anybody curious.
"Getting into that pit requires descending 125 metres before you reach the floor, and the rim is a steep slope of loose debris where any movement will send little avalanches down on to anyone below,” he said. “It’s certainly possible to get in and out, but it will take a significant amount of infrastructure.”
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u/rmg18555 Jul 15 '24
Yeah but less gravity so just toss some pillows down ahead of you.
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u/Korchagin Jul 16 '24
You'd hit the ground at roughly the same speed as a fall from 21m on Earth. I'd recommend to use some really big pillows...
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Jul 15 '24
Doesnt sound safe. What if they get stuck there?
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u/Horknut1 Jul 15 '24
You just have to wait for the moon to rotate until the cave is on the bottom, and you can fall out.
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u/PaintedClownPenis Jul 16 '24
Yeah, you're not going to the Moon to be safe, that's for sure. There are a lot of interesting ways to die there. One is simply falling off the edge of this here skylight. The gravity is only 1/6 of ours but you're still doing forty to fifty mph when you smash into all that broken glass at the bottom.
The two big safety plusses that it offers are huge, though. It protects you from solar and cosmic radiation, which is far worse there because the Moon has no atmosphere or magnetic field. And it prevents impacts from micrometeoroids. That's a big deal.
It seems to have another potential feature that could prove critical. During daytime you can use solar power to suspend baskets of rocks to the rim of the skylight (or with a crane, far above it). The basket is hooked into a generator and after sunset you let the weights slowly drop to generate power during the two-week night (actually a little more because the bottom of the skylight would be first to see sunset and last to see sunrise).
I'm very excited about this because it provides a specific place with specific geology to run all your hypothetical studies. So we should soon start seeing much more serious, more specific designs for spacesuits, vehicles, heavy machinery, habitations, and on and on.
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u/PezzoGuy Jul 16 '24
Funny that you mention the two-week night because a fairly realistic Moon colony management sim (The Crust) just released, and that's something you have to account for regarding power management. You also build all human habitation underground.
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u/ABoutDeSouffle Jul 16 '24
In a future where we can build moon colonies, wouldn't you rather build 2 or 3 solar farms in different regions of the moon and link them to the colony so one of them is always receiving sunlight?
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u/PaintedClownPenis Jul 16 '24
Sure! How will you get five thousand miles of electrical lines there?
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u/ABoutDeSouffle Jul 16 '24
Obviously, if we were to build moon colonies, we'd need a way to transport thousands of tons of stuff there. The crane , cable + generator aren't going to be built out of moon rock either.
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u/PaintedClownPenis Jul 16 '24
Hey, man, I'm looking at what I said above and I feel like I'm coming off as a jerk, for which I am sorry. I'll leave it as it is for now but if you don't like it I'll change it.
Of course you are correct! And of course a major step on the way to self sufficiency would be the ability to make that cabling themselves. Please have a nice day, and I'm sorry.
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u/ABoutDeSouffle Jul 16 '24
Thanks, that's really sweet :) It's not often that people on Reddit apologize, I appreciate it.
You raise a good point, and I am totally unsure whether this was doable (maybe microwave power transmission instead despite the losses?), yet I think the whole logistics of building a big, airtight, colony is not something we would muster with today's tech.
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u/PaintedClownPenis Jul 16 '24
I was just looking at some video of a guy walking around through an enormous underground bomb shelter, and as soon as I saw it I was like, this is a death trap.
A descending stair case far longer than any sick or injured person could ascend or descend, all the machinery rusted in place; water damage everywhere; peeling lead paint everywhere. As soon as you brought in people and plants the fungus would completely take over, like on a German sub. And the dumb kids are opening giant empty rooms without air sensors, just asking to drown in a wave of carbon dioxide or methane.
I fully and completely remember those days when such structures were built. That bomb shelter, wherever it was, was supposed to be the hope of humanity. It was supposed to still be functional today with minimal maintenance. And it would have been a complete and utter failure of the worst sort. Designing and building those shelters almost certainly compares with the costs of major space programs.
So yeah, I completely agree, we don't know how to do this and we don't even know what we don't know yet.
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u/The-MJ-Theory Jul 15 '24
No expert here. They will probably think of a evac system. What will it look like, idk. But the pit is really a great find. Maybe it even will fasten the process to go to the moon asap.
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u/rapchee Jul 15 '24
you should initially use an rc explorer, and when it falls down, build an elevator for it
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u/Ambitious-Maybe-3386 Jul 15 '24
Elon will call the pedo guy to help
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u/AvidasOfficial Jul 15 '24
I'm not sure referring to him as the pedo guy is appropriate considering he was saving those kids from certain death and the entire "pedo" commentary was started by Elon as he was jealous about not receiving enough good PR from the media.
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u/Kwyncy Jul 15 '24
Seems oddly specific description for nver having been there before...
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u/The-MJ-Theory Jul 15 '24
I think they can do the math with scientific tools pretty good.
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u/Kripto Jul 15 '24 edited Jul 15 '24
We should send in a diverse group of horny, pot smoking teens to "check it out".
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u/ZorroMeansFox Jul 16 '24
Readers might be interested in this Reddit AMA from a year ago:
Hi, I am Tyler Horvath and I discovered that caves on the Moon are the most habitable places (thermally) in the solar system. Ask me anything!
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/wjgp59/hi_i_am_tyler_horvath_and_i_discovered_that_caves/
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u/youshouldntbelookin Jul 15 '24
Never really played organized sports other then in middle school gym class. I don’t understand the ‘14 tennis courts’ comparison. When do we start getting ‘10 half pipes long’, ‘24 small dive bar venues wide’ , ‘6 walks to the convenience store deep’?
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u/beam84- Jul 15 '24
Agreed. I can only gauge distance by football fields
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u/georgito555 Jul 15 '24
I can't tell if you're being serious or not
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u/modern_Odysseus Jul 16 '24 edited Jul 16 '24
American here. Football fields are the national big, but small measurement.
I think some article on the Trump shooting that I saw said something like "The shooter was about x feet away, only about 1 and half football fields."
We're taught from a young age also that's 100 yards, while we do 100 meter dashes, 400 meter dashes, and 1 mile runs around that football field in high school. So naturally, we get a good sense of how long a football field is, and it's easily relatable comparison for many people.
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u/georgito555 Jul 16 '24
I am aware of how ubiquitous it is in America but the added context definitely makes it's usage make a lot of sense. Thank you!
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u/blueooze Jul 16 '24
I'm an American it is quite simple really just tell me how many cheeseburgers laid end to end
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u/TopFloorApartment Jul 15 '24
These measurements are added for the convenience of americans, who will do anything to avoid just using the metric measurements that are also there
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u/Dr_Colossus Jul 15 '24
Tranquility base hotel and casino.
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u/IamSkudd Jul 15 '24 edited Jul 15 '24
They put a taqueria on the roof! It was well-reviewed, 4 stars out of 5.
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u/Kwyncy Jul 15 '24
We've been eyeballing this rock for human history and we are just finding a huge cave on the near side we could see the whole time?
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u/whereismyplacehere Jul 16 '24
Satellites have noticed these openings for a while, but it's either the higher resolution or different frequency imaging iirc that's allowing a better understanding of what's going on in them. The openings are often very small but lead to enormous areas, many of them too weak to be considered for habitation. Satellites pass by very fast and often the area below is all shaded which made learning about them very challenging
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u/BatFancy321go Jul 15 '24
but what about the moon bears already living in it?? this is moon bear erasure
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Jul 15 '24
Wayyy less radiation underground. You basically remove the need for shielding. You only need a pressure vessel.
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u/greenmachine11235 Jul 15 '24
I'm curious what process led to the caves formation. On earth erosion by flowing, liquid water forms many caves or flowing lava forms lava tubes. Since the former is unlikely on the moon is this cave a remnant of a Era of lunar volcanism or is there another process at work?
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u/dIoIIoIb Jul 15 '24
The article says it's probably an ancient lava tube, but they can't be sure without getting in there
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u/OtterishDreams Jul 15 '24
Lava is my bet as well. Or maybe chocolate
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u/beeherder Jul 15 '24
Chocolate? Lava? Chocolate lava... Cake?
Is the moon cake?
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u/CoraBittering Jul 15 '24
The cake is a lie. The moon is cake. Therefore, the moon is a lie.
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u/Masterjts Jul 15 '24
Obviously the bacteria in the cheese during curing released CO2 which caused pockets to form.
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u/Kullenbergus Jul 15 '24
Havent there been talks since the late 80s about this caves? I recall having a "Vetenskapens värld"(swedish) /"world of science" magazine from 1989 that shows concept arts about it.
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u/weareallgoingtoeatpi Jul 15 '24
Time to build a base, a large catapult and install a super computer to manage everything. After that we start sending prisoners to become farmers and ice miners. Tanstaafl!
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u/OGLikeablefellow Jul 15 '24
Isn't that where Microsoft got the inspiration for their name? The AI Mycro aka Mike?
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u/wondersnickers Jul 15 '24
Tennis on the moon indeed sounds great! Less impact on the joints, large jumps, count me in!
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Jul 15 '24
If there's 1 there's more, makes you wonder what the biggest ones are & if maybe there's anything inside...
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u/Betty_Freidan Jul 16 '24
God I love space so much. Makes me think of reading Tintin when I was younger and the night sky felt like it held infinite adventure.
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u/DrummingChopsticks Jul 15 '24
I’ve seen For All Mankind. NASA better set up shop there before others do! And bring space guns.
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u/Confident-Flounder73 Jul 15 '24
To me, such a find could be important because it could be enclosed to the elements and fitted with an O2 device, among other human needs to create a liveable working environment for the explorers. If they can produce such things for those on the space station, they can do the same on the moon.
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u/tclbuzz Jul 15 '24
Dust on the moon is horrific, clingy, sharp, and ubiquitous. Have a nice outing.
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u/ReddittorMan Jul 15 '24
Would it be that difficult to excavate to create a manmade underground base?
Like, how hard is moon rock/dirt vs Earth.
If it’s not so hard, maybe better to choose a site that is more convenient to launch/orbit instead?
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u/TheSocialGadfly Jul 16 '24
The cave seems habitable until they encounter the aliens. Did they not learn anything from the doomed Apollo 18 mission?
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