NASA is considering the placement of cosmonaut settlements on the moon in lunar caves

One of the holes in the smooth surface of the Sea of ​​Tranquility. The "bottom", as we see, is also smooth, covered with boulders.

On the surface of the moon, there are millions of small small craters, caused by billions of years of meteorite bombardment of the surface of the Earth’s satellite. But there are more interesting formations on the Moon - these are holes, dips, which are now counted around 200.

According to experts, some of the holes can serve as the entrance to an extensive network of lunar caves (which, in turn, were formed under the influence of lava flows and geological activity of the Moon hundreds of millions of years ago).
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The dimensions of the "holes" are different. Now found holes with a diameter of 5 meters to almost 900 meters. The first three failures were discovered on images transmitted to Earth by the Japanese Kaguya apparatus. All others were found as a result of applying the new image search algorithm. The algorithm is used to process images from the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) machine.

Most likely, the "roof" over the voids in the crust of the Moon collapses under the influence of all the same meteorites that create shock seismic waves when it falls. The surface does not stand up and collapses. The study of voids can reveal the history of the origin of the lunar seas, where the overwhelming majority of the failures were discovered.



Currently, the LRO camera has covered no more than 40% of the lunar surface, so new discoveries are still ahead, it is highly likely that there are more voids on the Moon than it has been discovered to date (according to the scientists, these formations may be 2-3 times more than found now). Some of them probably cannot be detected now, because some regions are always in the shadow, and the algorithm simply cannot work with such dark areas.

According to scientists, subsurface voids on the moon can be an ideal place to accommodate cosmonaut settlements, scientific stations and other infrastructure facilities. It is enough to seal the entrance, and the rest of the space can be mastered. If the assumptions about the existence of a whole network of subsurface lunar caves are confirmed, then the settlements can expand without any special problems - there is no need to “bite” into the lunar crust, nature did everything for a man.

Nether - the perfect place to settle. Neither solar radiation, nor micrometeorites, probably, reduced amount of dust and no excessive diurnal (meaning lunar day) temperature fluctuations.



Via nasa