Cave discovered on Moon could be home for humans

Scientists have made an exciting discovery on the Moon: a cave that is at least 100 meters deep. This cave could be an ideal place for humans to build a permanent base. Researchers believe there are probably many more caves like this one hidden beneath the Moon's surface. Countries are in a race to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon, but they need to protect astronauts from radiation, extreme temperatures, and space weather. Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut, told BBC News that the newly discovered cave looks like a good place for a base. She suggested that humans could potentially be living in lunar pits in 20-30 years. However, she noted that the cave is so deep that astronauts might need to use special equipment like jet packs or a lift to get in and out.

Lorenzo Bruzzone and Leonardo Carrer from the University of Trento in Italy discovered the cave using radar to penetrate the opening of a pit on a rocky plain called the Mare Tranquillitatis. This area, which was probably once an ocean, is visible to the naked eye from Earth and is also where Apollo 11 landed in 1969. The cave has a skylight on the Moon's surface, leading down to vertical and overhanging walls and a sloping floor that might extend further underground. It was formed millions or billions of years ago when lava flowed on the Moon, creating a tunnel through the rock. The closest equivalent on Earth would be the volcanic caves in Lanzarote, Spain, which the researchers visited as part of their work.

Prof Carrer expressed his excitement about the discovery, saying that when you make these discoveries and look at these images, you realize you are the first person in the history of humanity to see it. Once Prof Bruzzone and Prof Carrer understood the size of the cave, they realized it could be a good spot for a lunar base. Prof Carrer noted that life on Earth began in caves, so it makes sense that humans could live inside them on the Moon. The cave has yet to be fully explored, but the researchers hope to use ground-penetrating radar, cameras, or even robots to map it. Scientists first realized there were probably caves on the Moon around 50 years ago. In 2010, a camera on a mission called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took pictures of pits that scientists thought could be cave entrances. However, researchers did not know how deep the caves might be or if they would have collapsed. Prof Bruzzone and Prof Carrer's work has now answered that question, although there is much more to be done to understand the full scale of the cave.

Francesco Sauro, Coordinator of the Topical Team Planetary Caves of the European Space Agency, told BBC News that there are huge opportunities for discovery. The research may also help us explore caves on Mars in the future, which could open the door to finding evidence of life on Mars. If life did exist on Mars, it would almost certainly have been inside caves protected from the elements on the planet's surface. The Moon cave might be useful to humans, but the scientists also stress that it could help answer fundamental questions about the history of the Moon and even our solar system. The rocks inside the cave will not be as damaged or eroded by space weather, so they can provide an extensive geological record going back billions of years. The research is published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy.