Permanently warm spots on the Moon

It has been discovered that there are certain points on the Moon where the temperature never goes much higher or lower than 17 degrees Celsius.

The team of Tyler Horvath, from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in the United States, has discovered shady places inside wells on the Moon that are always around a comfortable 17 degrees Celsius. The finding has been made through a thorough analysis of data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft and simulations with computer models.

The wells, and the caves to which they can lead, would be places thermally stable enough to be suitable for the establishment of astronauts for long periods of time. By comparison, there are areas of the Moon’s surface that heat up to about 120 degrees Celsius during the day and cool to about 170 below zero at night.

The pits were first discovered on the Moon in 2009, and since then scientists have wondered if they lead to caves that could be explored or used as shelters. Pits or caves would also offer some protection from cosmic rays, solar radiation, and micrometeorites.

Some 16 of the more than 200 pits are probably collapsed lava tubes (tunnels).

Lava tubes, also found on Earth, form when molten lava flows under a cooled lava field or crusts over a lava river, leaving a long, hollow tunnel. If the roof of a solidified lava tube collapses, a shaft opens up that can lead to the rest of the cave-like tunnel.

Two of the most prominent shafts clearly lead to caves, and there are strong indications that another shaft may also lead to a large cave.

Focusing on a roughly cylindrical depression, 100 meters deep, with the length and width of a football field, in an area of ​​the Moon known as Mare Tranquillitatis, Horvath and his colleagues used computer models to analyze the thermal properties of lunar rock and dust and to record borehole temperatures over time.

One of the points analyzed in the study. (Photo: NASA Goddard/Arizona State University)

The results reveal that temperatures within the permanently shaded sections of the borehole fluctuate only slightly throughout the lunar day, hovering around 17 degrees Celsius. If a cave extends from the bottom of the pit, as the LRO photos suggest, that cave would also have this relatively comfortable temperature.

The study is titled “Thermal and Illumination Environments of Lunar Pits and Caves: Models and Observations From the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment.” And it has been published in the academic journal Geophysical Research Letters. (Font: NCYT by Amazings)