GRAIL spacecraft tagged posts

With a roof 2 m thick, lava tubes a kilometer or more in width can remain stable  according to computer modelling, supporting inferences from GRAIL observations. Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A team of researchers with Purdue University has found evidence from lunar-mapping spacecraft that the moon may have large lava tubes that could conceivably be used to house astronauts and supplies. In their paper published in the journal Icarus, the team describes their study of data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) twin spacecraft and outline the evidence for large lava tubes.

Prior research here on Earth has shown that lava flowing across a surface can form a shell of sorts as it cools, and when the shell collapses, a hollowed-out underground space remains—geologists call ...