LUNAR CAVE COORDS MOVIE

The primary advantage of housing a lunar base in a lava tube is the potential to use extremely lightweight construction materials. Penetrative cracks in the roof may exist, which would make it extremely difficult to render the enclosed volume airtight, but the lava tube could act as a receptacle for self-enclosed habitats. Lava tubes could be used merely as receptacles for prefabricated, modular habitats, either imported from Earth or fabricated from lunar resources. Creation of similarly shielded environments would be a significant cost to manufacture for any lunar base on the lunar surface. The thickness of the roof would provide safe long-term shelter against radiation and meteorite collisions. It appears such a lava tube could house a lunar base on the Moon. The pit itself may have been caused by an impact that punched through the lava tube roof.Įnlarged image of the Marius Hills pit showing a small crater on the northwestern edge and small boulders on the southern lip of the hole. Because the Marius Hills pit is in the middle of a sinuous rille, it likely represents a collapse in the roof of a lava tube. The area around the hole is covered by a thin (20 to 25 m) lava sheet, which may help protect the lava tube from collapse due to meteorite bombardment. The hole was estimated to be 80 to 88 m deep. The hole is nearly circular, 65 m in diameter, and located in a sinuous rille at the Marius Hills region, a volcanic province on the lunar nearside.

LUNAR CAVE COORDS MOVIE

The SELENE/Kaguya Terrain Camera team made a fly-over movie of the hole, which is available here. One possible example is the Marius Hills pit, which was discovered in images from the Japanese SELENE/Kaguya Terrain Camera and Multiband Imager, and reported in Geophysical Research Letters.

Significant operational, technological, and economical benefits might result if a lunar base were constructed inside a lava tube. These are extremely favorable environmental conditions for human activities and industrial operations. Just like caves on the Earth, lunar caves, including lava tubes, have benign temperatures that are constant. The interiors of lava tubes could protect human explorers from different aspects of the lunar environment, including cosmic rays, meteorite impacts, and the extreme temperature differences between the lunar day and night. Consequently, lava tube interiors offer an environment that is naturally protected from the hazards of radiation and meteorite impact. The inside dimensions of these tubes measure tens to hundreds of meters, and their roofs are expected to be thicker than 10 meters. Natural caverns occur on the moon in the form of ‘lava tubes’, which are the drained conduits of underground lava rivers.

Lunar cave coords