Think you’re safe from a natural disaster on the moon? Well think again.
A new study funded by NASA and published in Planetary Science Journal late last month could shake up NASA’s plans (as well as those of China, Russia and India) to explore the moon’s south pole, literally and figuratively. A scientific study confirms that the Moon is shrinking and that this change in size is causing intense rumblings beneath the lunar regolith.
“The lunar south polar regions are exposed to global stresses that cause contractional deformation and associated seismicity,” the article says. “The potential for strong seismic events from active thrust faults should be considered in the preparation and placement of permanent bases and represents a potential hazard for future robotic and human exploration of the South Polar region.”
The fact that the Moon is shrinking is not new: scientists have known about it since at least 2010. But as is often the case with geological phenomena (on Earth or elsewhere), the temperature-induced shrinkage of the Moon has only shrunk by about 150 feet over the past few hundred million years flight. NASA describes this shrinking of the moon in its science study as grapes slowly turning into smaller raisins, but since the lunar crust (or “skin” for this analogy) is not as flexible as grapes, it tends to form the familiar cracks. as “thrust faults” where one part of the crust overlaps another.
NASA astronauts installed seismometers on the lunar surface during the Apollo years, and between 1969 and 1977 these instruments recorded more than 28 shallow lunar earthquakes, eight of which could be attributed to these faults. Although none of these earthquakes exceeded 5.0 on the Richter scale, the moon’s tremors were worse due to the moon’s lower gravity.
This new article adds more details about the lunar seismic inferno. For example, these lunar earthquakes can last for hours, cause landslides, and pose a serious problem for anyone who wants to settle on the moon’s south pole.
Lead study author Thomas R. Watters and his team used data collected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was launched in 2009, to take a closer look at (among other things) the original Apollo data.
“We knew from the Apollo seismic experiment … that there were these shallow moonquakes, but we didn’t really know what their source was,” Watters said. CNN. “We also knew that the largest of the shallow moonquakes detected by the Apollo seismometers was near the South Pole. It became a bit of a detective story to try to figure out what the source was, and these young faults turned out to be the best suspect.”
Watters’ model suggests that the lunar south pole is prone to these earthquakes and landslides, and even includes a thrust fault in Gerlache Rim 2, a candidate landing zone for Artemis III. These geological upheavals also occur in permanently shadowed regions, which is particularly important because it is thought that these regions could contain water in the form of ice, an important resource for any future lunar settlement. We will see if the conclusions of this scientific study can finally land in this field.
No one said life on the moon would be easy.
Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about science fiction and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff on Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough.
