lava tubes tagged posts

Beneath the moon’s cratered surface lie networks of lava tubes and deep pits, natural caves that could shelter future lunar bases from cosmic radiation and wild temperature swings. These underground structures represent some of the most scientifically valuable areas in the solar system, but they come with the very real challenge of simply getting there.

The entrances to these caves feature steep, rugged terrain with rocks and loose regolith. Small rovers, preferred for lunar exploration because you can deploy many of them to reduce mission risk, face an inherent limitation. Their compact wheels simply can’t climb over obstacles much larger than the wheel diameter itself...

This is an image of the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credit: NASA LRO WAC science team

Unique patterns, visible from backyard telescopes, may be produced by strongly magnetized lava. The mystery behind lunar swirls, one of the solar system’s most beautiful optical anomalies, may finally be solved thanks to a joint Rutgers University and University of California Berkeley study. The solution hints at the dynamism of the moon’s ancient past as a place with volcanic activity and an internally generated magnetic field. It also challenges our picture of the moon’s existing geology.

Lunar swirls resemble bright, snaky clouds painted on the moon’s dark surface. The most famous, called Reiner Gamma, is about 40 miles long and popular with backyard astronomers...

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 ...