Some Italian researchers have discovered that on the Moon, in the Mare Tranquillitatis, there is a tunnel more than 100 meters deep that can lead to an underground cave that could be a future natural base for astronauts engaged in future missions to the Moon.
How did the discovery happen?
The discovery was made by an international research team, led by the Italian group from the University of Trento, which for the first time demonstrated the existence of a cavity in the wide located basaltic plain on the hemisphere of the satellite always facing Earth.
This identification, made known after one study published in Nature Astronomy, was possible thanks to the analysis of the data obtained from LRO, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and, specifically, through the examination of the radar images acquired by the Mini-Rf (Miniature Radio-Frequency) instrument on board the orbiter .
For over 50 years it has been hypothesized that there were caves on the moon and now the hypothesis has become certainty, as explained by Professor Lorenzo Bruzzone, senior co-author of the study and director of the Remote Sensing Laboratory at the Department of Information Engineering and Information Sciences of the University of Trento.
The lunar tunnels they are considered very interesting by scientists, because they can become a construction site for a moon base to serve as an outpost for busy astronauts in future missions to the Moon. At the moment, however, it has not yet been confirmed whether the tunnel leads to a cave or not, but, according to studies done, it seems that it leads to an accessible cave under the lunar surface.
What would be the dimensions of the cave?
According to scientists' studies, the duct would be located at a depth of between 130 and 170 meters and would be between 30 and 80 meters long and approximately 45 meters wide.
Its origin could be lava and its formation dates back billions of years ago, when the Moon was still geologically active, following volcanic eruptions and the flow of lava flows.
The study involved also the scholars ofUniversity of Padua and Venta Geographic Exploration APS of Treviso, who collaborated with researchers from Capella Space Corporation of San Francisco (California) and with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel (Maryland).
Further tests will be needed to confirm the nature of the conduit and the possibility that it leads to an underground cavern, but this first discovery opens the way to new observations, which will also allow us to evaluate whether the site can be exploited for the construction of future infrastructures, capable to provide shelter from the harsh lunar environment, promoting long-term exploration.
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