Moon has tunnels we can live in
It’s just like The Clangers!
THEY may not look like experts in lunar living. But it seems The Clangers had the right idea all along.
Researchers have confirmed there are huge underground caves beneath the Moon’s surface and that living in tunnels below ground could indeed by a viable option for a future colony of scientists.
Lunar caves may provide an ideal spot for a base by reducing humans’ exposure to damaging radiation, and insulating them from temperature swings, according to experts.
The Clangers – the popular children’s TV series from the 1970s – saw the pink knitted creatures living in tunnels with the Soup Dragon on their own tiny moon.
Now data taken from Japan’s Selene lunar orbiter has confirmed the existence of a similar cavern – 31miles long and 330ft wide.
Experts from the country’s space agency believe it is a ‘lava tube’ created by volcanic activity about 3.5billion years ago.
Jaxa, Japan’s space agency, said they found the huge underground tunnel under an area called the Marius Hills.
Previous research identified the potential for the underground networks of tubes, which can stretch up to 40 miles, as habitats for future space dwellers.
The full findings of the Japanese team were published this week in the magazine Geophysical Research Letters.
Junichi Haruyama, a researcher at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, said: ‘We’ve known about these locations that were thought to be lava tubes. But their existence has not been confirmed until now. We haven’t actually seen the inside of the cave itself so there are high hopes that exploring it will offer more details.’
Lava tubes are found in many volcanic areas on Earth, including Lanzarote, Hawaii, Iceland, North Queensland in Australia, Sicily and the Galapagos islands.
Researchers from the European Space Agency have been exploring these formations to compare lava tube locations here on Earth with those on the moon and Mars.
They hope this will allow astronauts to prepare for the conditions they will find when they return to the moon.
The Jaxa announcement comes after Japan in June revealed ambitious plans to put an astronaut on the Moon around 2030.
‘Exploring will offer more details’