According to TechCrunch, a possible cave has been discovered on Mare Tranquillitatus on the Moon, not far from where Apollo 11 touched down.
Data collected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2010 was analyzed by JHUAPL, Capella Space, and a team of Italian astronomers led by Lorenzo Bruzzone and Leonardo Carrer. This data included radar imagery of the Moon’s surface.
Upon analyzing the data, the team said it had found an area where the imagery suggests the presence of “a subsurface cave tens of meters long.” The research was published in Nature Astronomy.
Right now we have no idea how big the cave could be. All we know is that it’s at the bottom of a pit around 100 meters deep, and the fact it has survived so long appears to suggest it’s highly stable. The cave’s location so far beneath the Moon’s surface means it’s protected from temperature fluctuations, solar and cosmic radiation, and the constant threat of meteorites.
These threats have made the reality of building a lunar habitat on the surface of the Moon a challenging, if not impossible prospect, until now. With the cave as a base, there would be no need to build an entire habitat from scratch.
NASA’s Lunar Habitat Plans May Change
There are still a lot of uncertainties, such as the cave’s dimensions, whether it’s filled with rubble, or whether it’s fit for habitation. Over the coming months and years, we can expect to see further research into the newly discovered cave, with a wave of lunar-adjacent tech launching to support these studies.
With NASA already developing plans for lunar habitats, this latest discovery will mean those plans need to be reworked. The race to design a habitat within these lunar tunnels is on and is sure to attract both private and public interest.